In his youth, while living in Russia, Ivan Sergeevich usually lived on his estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, and in the winter he showed up in the capitals. His uncle Pyotr Nikolaevich Turgenev lived in Moscow at that time, and he often organized parties. At these evenings, the owner’s niece, the young and pretty Elizaveta Alekseevna Turgeneva, appeared. Among the few servants this young lady had was a courtyard girl, Theoktista, whom everyone called Fetiska. Something inexpressibly attractive and pretty was visible in the features of her long, dark face. Sometimes she looked so hard that it was impossible to take your eyes off her. She was amazingly slender, her arms and legs were small, her gait was proud, majestic, as if she was of a completely different blood than the servant... Lady Elizaveta Alekseevna dressed her like a young lady.

On one of his visits to Moscow, Ivan Sergeevich once looked at his cousin, saw Fetiska and... was struck to the very heart. He began to visit this house very often and became more and more convinced of his feelings. In one of Turgenev’s stories there are the following words: “When one maid entered the room with him, he was ready to throw himself at her feet and cover her with countless kisses.” In pre-reform times, a wealthy landowner had to think a little to come up with the prosaic thought: “What if I buy this girl?”

Quite soon, the romantically inclined Ivan Sergeevich had a frank conversation with his cousin and, despite the positive answer, he was very puzzled by the amount that she named. Back then, courtyard girls were sold for 25, 30, or at most 50 rubles, but here, after haggling, they agreed on 700 rubles - an unthinkable price for anyone in their right mind! The money was given, and Fetiska, shedding tears, moved to Ivan Sergeevich. Turgenev immediately admitted that he loved her very much and would try to make her happy. She was shy and avoided him, because for her he was only a new master. Having bought Fetiska expensive clothes and linen made from the finest linen, Ivan Sergeevich sent Fetiska to Spasskoye. And soon I went there myself. A year passed, quite idyllic, but then Ivan Sergeevich became bored. The object of passion disappointed him more and more. Fetiska knew nothing and did not want to know, just like learning to read, write and listen to music. All efforts to develop this charming creature and expand her horizons led to nothing. She was only interested in neighbors' squabbles and gossip. Soon she became pregnant and gave birth to a girl, who was named Polina. Leaving his little daughter in the care of his mother, Turgenev went to Paris, closer to the Viardot family, music, art - to a life that met his moral and aesthetic needs. Later, he brought the grown-up Polina to Paris, Polina Viardot took part in her upbringing, gave her an education, and married her to a rich Frenchman. He did everything that a good father should, but his daughter never became spiritually close to him.

From the memoirs of Nikolai Berg, 1883

Ivan Turgenev photography

What does he see in his house?

His parents are an example to him!

Simple in form, but in essence a very wise poem of three lines expresses the idea that a child learns the main science of life in the family.

Please note: in the poem the emphasis is not on what the child hears “in his home”, not on what his parents instill in him, but on what he himself sees. But what exactly does he see that teaches him and educates him? The way he sees us treat each other? How long do we work and for what? What are we reading? What if it’s neither one nor the other, nor the third, but something completely different?! When raising a child, parents do their best. And sometimes he grows up completely different from what they dreamed of. Why? How could this happen? There is a universal answer to this kind of difficult and bitter questions: “the ways of the Lord are mysterious!..” But let’s try to figure it out using one example: why in a certain family at a certain time a child grew up the way he, it would seem, should not have grown up? We will talk about the great Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, by the way, the author of the famous novel called “Fathers and Sons” - precisely dedicated to the continuity of generations.

About the childhood of the writer himself. we know something. For example, the fact that Turgenev’s parents were rich from the Mtsensk district of the Oryol province, convinced and harsh serf owners. (Don’t expect that new materials will be discovered that refute this fact - there are none!) But have we ever asked the question: why does such parents have a son who grows up to be a convinced anti-serfdom, a kind and kind-hearted person by nature? (There was even a case when young Turgenev took up a gun in order not to offend a peasant needlewoman from his village.) The answer seems to suggest itself: he had seen enough of the horrors and abominations of serfdom in the possession of souls - and so he hated it. Yes, this is the answer, but it’s too simple. Indeed, at the same time, in the neighboring estates of the Mtsensk district, the sons of the landowners, from a young age, kicked and mangled the servants, and having taken possession of the estate, they unbridled themselves worse than their parents, doing to people what is now called lawlessness. Well, they and Ivan Turgenev were not cut from the same cloth? Did you breathe a different air, did you study from more than one textbook?..

To understand what made Turgenev spiritually the direct opposite of his parents, one would need to get to know them better. Firstly, with my mother, Varvara Petrovna. Colorful figure! On the one hand, he speaks and writes fluently in French, reads Voltaire and Rousseau, is friends with the great poet V. Zhukovsky, loves the theater, loves growing flowers...

On the other hand, for the disappearance of just one tulip from the garden, he gives the order to flog all the gardeners... He can’t get enough of his sons, especially the middle one, Ivan (not knowing how to express his tenderness for him, sometimes he calls him... . “my beloved Vanya”!), spares neither effort nor money to give them a good education. At the same time, in the Turgenev house, children are often whipped! “Rarely a day passed without rods,” recalled Ivan Sergeevich, “when I dared to ask why I was being punished, my mother categorically declared: “You better know about this, guess.”

Best of the day

When a son, studying in Moscow or abroad, does not write letters home for a long time, his mother threatens him for this... to flog one of the servants. And so with her, the servant, she does not stand on ceremony. The freedom-loving Voltaire and Rousseau do not in the least prevent her from exiling an offending maid to a remote, remote village, forcing a serf artist to paint the same thing a thousand times, and terrifying the elders and peasants while traveling around their estates...

“I have nothing to remember my childhood with,” Ivan Sergeevich sadly admits. – Not a single bright memory. I was afraid of my mother like hell..."

Let’s not ignore the writer’s father, Sergei Nikolaevich. He behaves more balanced, less cruel and picky than Varvara Petrovna. But his hand is also heavy. Maybe, for example, a home teacher he didn’t like for some reason could be thrown right down a flight of stairs. And he treats children without unnecessary sentimentality and takes almost no part in their upbringing. But, as you know, “the absence of education is also education.”

“My father had a strange influence on me...” writes Turgenev in one of his stories, into which he invested a lot of personal things. - He... never insulted me, he respected my freedom - he was even, so to speak, polite to me... only he did not allow me to come near him. I loved him, I admired him, he seemed to me a model of a man, and, my God, how passionately I would have become attached to him if I had not constantly felt his deflecting hands!..” Let us add on our own behalf: Sergei Nikolaevich is still far from children and because he rarely sees them.

Varvara Petrovna rules the roost in the house. She is the one who is involved in raising her children, she is the one who teaches “beloved Vanechka” object lessons in self-will...

Yes, but then what about the fact that “the child learns what he sees in his home” and that “parents are an example to him”? According to all the rules of genetics and family pedagogy, a father - a cold egoist and a mother with a despotic character - should have grown into a moral monster. But we know: he grew up to be a great writer, a man of great soul... No, no matter what you say, the Turgenev parents are an example to their son, an impressive example of how not to treat people. After all, the child also learns what he hates “in his home”!

Thank God, such a variant of generational continuity is also provided: children grow up, as they say, in the exact opposite direction from their fathers... What young Turgenev was more fortunate in than his peers from landowner families was that his parents, for all their selfishness and cruelty, both are smart, well-educated people. And, importantly, they are interesting, extraordinary in their own way, as if woven from blatant contradictions. Varvara Petrovna alone is worth so much! A writer (and Ivan Sergeevich was undoubtedly born to him) definitely needs something above the norm, something out of the ordinary. In this sense, Turgenev’s parents, with their colorfulness, will serve their talented son well: they will inspire him to create unforgettably believable types of that time...

Of course, a child “in his home” sees not only the bad. He learns (and much more willingly!) from good examples. Did Ivan Turgenev love his parents? Freezing from timidity and fear - yes, he loved. And, probably, for some reason he felt sorry for both of them. After all, if you thoroughly delve into the life of each of them, you won’t envy...Varenka Lutovinova’s (her maiden name) father dies early, and her stepfather is so rude and headstrong (can you smell it?) that she, unable to bear the abuse of herself, runs away from Houses. Her uncle takes her under protection and guardianship. But he is also a man with tricks: he keeps his niece locked up almost always. Perhaps she is afraid that she will lose her virginity before marriage. But, it seems, his fears are in vain: Varenka, to put it delicately, does not shine with beauty... However, when her uncle dies, she, his heir, will one day become the richest landowner of the Oryol province...

Her time has come! Varvara Petrovna now takes everything from life - and even more. The son of a neighboring landowner, lieutenant cavalry guard Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev, catches her eye. A man is good for everyone: handsome, stately, intelligent, six years younger than her. But - poor. However, for the rich woman Lutovinova, the latter does not matter at all. And when the lieutenant proposes to her, she, beside herself with happiness, accepts him...

This is not the first time that wealth has been combined with beauty and youth. This is not the first time it has become fragile. Having given up on his military career, Sergei Nikolaevich indulges in hunting, carousing (usually on the side), card games, and starts one affair after another. Varvara Petrovna knows about everything (there are always more helpful people in this regard than are needed), but she endures: she values ​​and loves her handsome husband to such an extent. And, as they say in these cases, he turns his unspent tenderness into sophisticated mockery of people...

Ivan Sergeevich learns about everything that his mother experienced and felt during her life only after her death. After reading Varvara Petrovna’s diaries, he exclaims: “What a woman!.. May God forgive her everything... But what a life!” Even as a child, observing the behavior of his parents, he sees a lot and guesses a lot. This is how any child works, especially a gifted one: not yet having much knowledge and solid life experience, he uses what caring and wise nature generously endows him with, perhaps even more generously than an adult - intuition. It is she who helps “unreasonable” children make correct, sometimes amazingly correct, conclusions. It is thanks to her that the child sees best “in his home” exactly what adults carefully hide from him. That is why we can say: not just anywhere, but precisely in his home, no matter how rich, just as unhappy, the future writer Ivan Turgenev will understand how incomprehensibly complex life is and what an abyss of secrets any human soul keeps within itself...

When a child is afraid of his mother “like fire,” when he constantly stumbles upon the “rejecting hands” of his father, where should he look for love and understanding, without which life is not life? He goes where children who have not received the warmth of home have always gone and go today - “out into the street.” In Russian estates, the “street” is the courtyard, and its inhabitants are called courtyards. These are nannies, tutors, bartenders, errand boys (there was such a position), grooms, foresters, etc. They may not speak French, they may not have read Voltaire and Rousseau. But they have enough natural intelligence to understand: Barchuk Ivan’s life, like theirs, is not all sugar. And they are kind enough to at least somehow caress him. One of them, at the risk of being flogged, helps the barchuk open a cabinet with old books, another takes him hunting with him, the third takes him into the depths of the famous Spassky-Lutovinovsky park and together with him reads poems and stories with inspiration...

It is with such love and trepidation that Ivan Sergeevich, who himself said that his biography is in his works, describes childhood episodes dear to his heart in one of his stories: “...And so we managed to escape unnoticed, now we are sitting side by side, now The book is already opening, emitting a sharp, for me then inexplicably pleasant smell of mold and old stuff!.. The first sounds of reading are heard! Everything around disappears... no, it doesn’t disappear, but becomes distant, covered in haze, leaving behind only the impression of something friendly and patronizing! These trees, these green leaves, these tall grasses obscure, shelter us from the rest of the world, no one knows where we are, what we are - and poetry is with us, we are imbued with it, we revel in it, an important, great, secret thing is happening to us ..."

Close communication with people of the lower class, as they said then, would largely predetermine Turgenev as a writer. It is he who will bring into Russian literature a man from the Russian hinterland - economical, skilled, with a certain amount of cunning and trickery. There is no need to prove the nationality of his works: the many-faced Russian people act, speak, and suffer in them. Many writers are recognized only after their death. Turgenev was read by people even during his lifetime, and among others, ordinary people read books - the very ones whom he bowed to all his life...

Among other things, Turgenev differs from other outstanding writers of Russia in that his descriptions of nature take many, many pages. The modern reader, accustomed to prose with a dynamic (sometimes too much) narrative, sometimes becomes unbearable. But if you read carefully, these are wonderful and unique descriptions, like Russian nature itself! It feels like Turgenev, when writing, saw the mysterious depths of the Russian forest right in front of him, squinted from the silver light of the autumn sun, heard the morning call of sweet-voiced birds. And he really saw and heard all this, even when he lived far from Spassky - in Moscow, Rome, London, Paris... Russian nature is his second home, his second mother, she, too, is his biography. There is a lot of it in Turgenev’s works because then there was a lot of it in general, and a lot in his life, in particular.

Thanks to his parents, Ivan Sergeevich saw the world as a child (the family traveled for many months around European countries), received an excellent education in Russia and abroad, and for a long time, while he was looking for his calling, he lived on money sent by his mother. (Turgenev’s father died quite early.) Having met Turgenev, Dostoevsky wrote about him: “Poet, talent, aristocrat, handsome, rich, smart, 25 years old. I don’t know what nature denied him.” In a word, a difficult childhood, despotic order in the house, apparently, did not outwardly affect him. As for his character, spiritual harmony... Most likely, the strong, domineering nature of his mother was one of the reasons that, for all his beauty and talent, Ivan Sergeevich was often timid and indecisive, especially in relationships with women. His personal life turned out to be somewhat awkward: after several more or less serious hobbies, he gave his heart to the singer Viardot, and since she was a married woman, he entered into a strange coexistence with this family, living with her under the same roof for many years . As if carrying within himself the weakened bacilli of maternal pride and intolerance, Ivan Sergeevich is easily vulnerable, touchy, often quarrels with friends (Nekrasov, Goncharov, Herzen, Tolstoy, etc.), but, it is true, he is often the first to extend the hand of reconciliation. As if to reproach the indifference of his late father, he takes care of his illegitimate daughter Polina as best he can (he pays her mother a lifelong pension), but from an early age the girl cannot remember what the word “bread” means in Russian, and which does not justify, no matter how hard Turgenev tries, the aspirations of his father...

Turgenev, among other things, also differs from other outstanding Russian writers in his height. He was so tall that wherever he appeared, he was visible, like a bell tower, from everywhere. A giant and bearded man, with a soft, almost childish voice, friendly in character, hospitable, he, having lived abroad for a long time, being a very famous person there too, contributed greatly to the spread of the legend of the “Russian bear” in the West. But he was a very unusual “bear”: he wrote brilliant prose and fragrant blank verse, knew philosophy and philology very well, spoke German in Germany, Italian in Italy, French in France, Spanish with his beloved woman, Spanish Viardot...

So to whom do Russia and the world owe this miracle of physical and intellectual perfection, multifaceted talent and spiritual wealth? Are we really going to put his mother Varvara Petrovna and father Sergei Nikolaevich out of brackets? Let's pretend that he owes his beauty and outstanding growth, great diligence and aristocratically refined culture not to them, but to someone else?..

It was not without reason that Varvara Petrovna counted her son Ivan among her favorites - you can’t deny her insight. “I love you both passionately, but in different ways,” she writes to “beloved Vanechka,” slightly contrasting him with Nikolai, her eldest son. – You make me especially sick... (How wonderfully they expressed it in the old days!). If I can explain with an example. If they squeezed my hand, it would hurt, but if they stepped on my callus, it would be unbearable.” She realized before many literary critics that her son had a high gift for writing. (Showing a subtle literary taste, she writes to her son that his first published poem “smells of strawberries.”) Towards the end of her life, Varvara Petrovna changes greatly, becomes more tolerant, and in the presence of her son Ivan tries to do something kind and merciful. Well, in this regard, we can say that the continuity of generations is a two-way street: the time comes when parents learn something from their children...

It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast than the general spiritual appearance of Turgenev and the environment from which he directly emerged.

Parents of Ivan Turgenev

His father is Sergei Nikolaevich, a retired cuirassier colonel, was a remarkably handsome man, insignificant in his moral and mental qualities. The son did not like to remember him, and in those rare moments when he spoke to friends about his father, he characterized him as “a great fisher before the Lord.” The marriage of this ruined juir to the middle-aged, ugly, but very rich Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova was purely a matter of calculation. The marriage was not a happy one and did not restrain Sergei Nikolaevich (one of his many “pranks” was described by Turgenev in the story “First Love”). He died in 1834, leaving three sons - Nikolai, Ivan and Sergei, who soon died of epilepsy - at the complete disposal of his mother, who, however, had previously been the sovereign ruler of the house. It typically expressed the intoxication with power that was created by serfdom.

Lutovinov family was a mixture of cruelty, greed and voluptuousness (Turgenev depicted its representatives in “Three Portraits” and in “Ovsyanikov’s One-Palace”). Having inherited their cruelty and despotism from the Lutovinovs, Varvara Petrovna was embittered by her personal fate. Having lost her father early, she suffered both from her mother, depicted by her grandson in the essay “Death” (an old woman), and from a violent, drunken stepfather, who, when she was little, barbarously beat and tortured her, and when she grew up, began to pursue him with vile proposals . On foot, half dressed, she escaped to her uncle, I.I. Lutovinov, who lived in the village of Spassky - the same rapist who is described in Ovsyanikov's Odnodvorets. Almost completely alone, insulted and humiliated, Varvara Petrovna lived for up to 30 years in her uncle’s house, until his death made her the owner of a magnificent estate and 5,000 souls. All information that has been preserved about Varvara Petrovna paints her in the most unattractive form.

The childhood of Ivan Turgenev

Through the environment of “beatings and torture” she created, Turgenev carried his gentle soul unharmed, in which it was the spectacle of the furies of the landowners’ power, long before theoretical influences, that prepared the protest against serfdom. He himself was subjected to cruel “beatings and torture,” although he was considered his mother’s favorite son. “They beat me up,” Turgenev later said, “for all sorts of trifles, almost every day”; One day he was completely ready to run away from home. His mental education was carried out under the guidance of frequently changing French and German tutors. Varvara Petrovna had the deepest contempt for everything Russian; family members spoke to each other exclusively in French.

A love for Russian literature was secretly instilled in Turgenev by one of the serf valets, depicted by him, in the person of Punin, in the story “Punin and Baburin.”

Until the age of 9, Turgenev lived in the hereditary Lutovinovsky Spassky (10 versts from Mtsensk, Oryol province). In 1827, the Turgenevs settled in Moscow to educate their children; They bought a house on Samotek. Turgenev first studied at the Weidenhammer boarding school; then he was sent as a boarder to the director of the Lazarevsky Institute, Krause. Among his teachers, Turgenev recalled with gratitude the quite famous philologist in his time, researcher of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” D.N. Dubensky (XI, 200), mathematics teacher P.N. Pogorelsky and young student I.P. Klyushnikov, later a prominent member of the circle of Stankevich and Belinsky, who wrote thoughtful poems under the pseudonym - F - (XV, 446).

Student years

In 1833, 15-year-old Turgenev (this age of students, given the low requirements at that time, was common) entered the literature department of Moscow University. A year later, due to his older brother joining the Guards Artillery, the family moved to St. Petersburg, and Turgenev then moved to St. Petersburg University. Both scientific and general level Saint Petersburg The university was not very high at that time; Of his university mentors, with the exception of Pletnev, Turgenev did not even mention anyone by name in his memoirs. Turgenev became close to Pletnev and attended his literary evenings. As a 3rd year student, he submitted to his judgment his writing in iambic pentameter drama "Stenio", in Turgenev’s own words, “a completely absurd work, in which a slavish imitation of Byron’s Manfred was expressed with frenzied ineptitude.” At one of the lectures, Pletnev, without naming the author by name, analyzed this drama quite strictly, but still admitted that “there is something” in the author. The review encouraged the young writer: he soon gave Pletnev a number of poems, of which Pletnev published two in 1838 in his Sovremennik. This was not his first appearance in print, as Turgenev writes in his memoirs: back in 1836, he published in the “Journal of the Ministry of Public Education” a rather thorough, somewhat pompous, but quite literary review - “On a Journey to Holy Places,” A.N. Muravyova (not included in Turgenev’s collected works). In 1836, Turgenev completed the course with the degree of a full student.

After graduation

Dreaming of scientific activity, the following year he again took the final exam, received a candidate's degree, and in 1838 he went to Germany. Having settled in Berlin, Turgenev diligently took up his studies. He didn’t have to “improve” so much as sit down to learn the ABCs. Listening to lectures on the history of Roman and Greek literature at the university, he was forced to “cram” the elementary grammar of these languages ​​at home. At this time, a circle of gifted young Russians gathered in Berlin - Granovsky, Frolov, Neverov, Mikhail Bakunin, Stankevich. All of them were enthusiastically carried away by Hegelianism, in which they saw not only a system of abstract thinking, but a new gospel of life.

“In philosophy,” says Turgenev, “we were looking for everything except pure thinking.” Turgenev was greatly impressed by the entire system of Western European life. The conviction took root in his soul that only the assimilation of the basic principles of universal human culture could lead Russia out of the darkness in which it was plunged. In this sense, he becomes a convinced “Westerner.” Among the best influences of Berlin life is the rapprochement between Turgenev and Stankevich, whose death made a stunning impression on him.

In 1841 Turgenev returned to his homeland. At the beginning of 1842, he submitted a request to Moscow University for admission to the exam for the degree of Master of Philosophy; but there was no full-time professor of philosophy in Moscow at that time, and his request was rejected. As can be seen from the “New materials for the biography of I.S. Turgenev” published in the “Bibliographer” for 1891, Turgenev in the same 1842 quite satisfactorily passed the exam for a master’s degree at St. Petersburg University. All he had to do now was write his dissertation. It wasn't difficult at all; Dissertations from the Faculty of Literature of that time did not require solid scientific training.

Literary activity

But Turgenev had already lost his passion for professional learning; he is becoming more and more attracted to literary activities. He published short poems in Otechestvennye Zapiski, and in the spring of 1843 he published the poem “Parasha” as a separate book under the letters T. L. (Turgenev-Lutovinov). In 1845, another of his poems, “Conversation”, was also published as a separate book; in the "Notes of the Fatherland" of 1846 (N 1) the large poem "Andrey" appears, in the "Petersburg Collection" by Nekrasov (1846) - the poem "The Landowner"; In addition, Turgenev’s short poems are scattered throughout Otechestvennye Zapiski, various collections (by Nekrasov, Sologub) and Sovremennik. Since 1847, Turgenev completely stopped writing poetry, except for a few small comic messages to friends and the “ballad”: “Croquet in Windsor,” inspired by the massacre of the Bulgarians in 1876. Despite the fact that his performance in the poetic field was enthusiastically received by Belinsky , Turgenev, having reprinted even the weakest of his dramatic works in his collected works, completely excluded poetry from it. “I feel a positive, almost physical antipathy towards my poems,” he says in one private letter, “and not only do I not have a single copy of my poems, but I would pay dearly for them not to exist in the world at all.”

This severe neglect is decidedly unfair. Turgenev did not have a major poetic talent, but under some of his short poems and under individual passages of his poems, he would not refuse to put his name on any of our famous poets. He is best at paintings of nature: here one can clearly feel that aching, melancholic poetry that constitutes the mainbeautyTurgenev landscape.

Turgenev's poem "Parasha"- one of the first attempts in Russian literature to describe the sucking and leveling power of life and everyday vulgarity. The author married his heroine to someone she fell in love with and rewarded her with “happiness,” whose serene appearance, however, makes him exclaim: “But, God! Was that what I thought when, filled with silent adoration, I predicted for her soul a year of holy gratitude? suffering." "Conversation" is written in excellent verse; there are lines and stanzas of direct Lermontov beauty. In terms of its content, this poem, with all its imitation of Lermontov, is one of the first “civil” works in our literature, not in the later meaning of exposing individual imperfections of Russian life, but in the sense of a call to work for the common good. Both characters in the poem consider personal life alone to be an insufficient goal of meaningful existence; every person must perform some “feat,” serve “some god,” be a prophet and “punish weakness and vice.”

The other two are big Turgenev's poems, "Andrey" and "Landowner", are significantly inferior to the first. In "Andrey" the growing feelings of the hero of the poem for one married woman and her reciprocal feelings are described in a long-winded and boring manner; “The Landowner” is written in a humorous tone and represents, in the terminology of the time, a “physiological” sketch of landowner life - but only its external, ridiculous features are captured. Simultaneously with the poems, Turgenev wrote a number of stories, in which Lermontov’s influence was also very clearly felt. Only in the era of boundless charm of the Pechorin type could the young writer’s admiration for Andrei Kolosov, the hero of the story of the same name (1844), be created. The author presents him to us as an “extraordinary” person, and he really is completely extraordinary... an egoist who, without experiencing the slightest embarrassment, looks at the entire human race as an object of his amusement. The word “duty” does not exist for him: he abandons the girl who has fallen in love with him more easily than another throws away old gloves, and with complete unceremoniousness uses the services of his comrades. His special merit is that he “doesn’t stand on stilts.” The halo with which the young author surrounded Kolosov was undoubtedly influenced by Georges Sand, with her demand for complete sincerity in love relationships. But only here the freedom of relationships received a very peculiar shade: what was vaudeville for Kolosov turned into a tragedy for the girl who passionately fell in love with him. Despite the vagueness of the general impression, the story bears clear traces of serious talent.

Turgenev's second story, "Breter"(1846), represents the author's struggle between Lermontov's influence and the desire to discredit posturing. The hero of the story, Luchkov, with his mysterious gloominess, behind which something unusually deep seems to be, makes a strong impression on those around him. And so, the author sets out to show that the unsociability of the Breter, his mysterious silence are very prosaically explained by the reluctance of the most pitiful mediocrity to be ridiculed, his “denial” of love - by the rudeness of nature, indifference to life - by some Kalmyk feeling, between apathy and bloodthirstiness.

Contents of the third Turgenev's story "Three Portraits"(1846) was drawn from the family chronicle of the Lutovinovs, but everything unusual in this chronicle is very much concentrated in it. The clash between Luchinov and his father, the dramatic scene when the son, clutching a sword in his hands, looks at his father with evil and disobedient eyes and is ready to raise his hand against him - all this would be much more appropriate in some novel from a foreign life. The colors applied to Luchinov the father are also too thick, whom Turgenev forces for 20 years not to speak a single word to his wife because of the suspicion of adultery vaguely expressed in the story.

Dramatic field

Along with poetry and romantic stories, Turgenev also tries his hand at the dramatic field. Of his dramatic works, the most interesting is the lively, funny and scenic genre picture written in 1856 "Breakfast at the Leader's", which is still in the repertoire. Thanks, in particular, to good stage performance, they also enjoyed success "Freeloader" (1848), "Bachelor" (1849),"Provincial Girl", "A Month in the Country".

The success of “The Bachelor” was especially dear to the author. In the preface to the 1879 edition, Turgenev, “not recognizing his dramatic talent,” recalls “with a feeling of deep gratitude that the brilliant Martynov deigned to play in four of his plays and, by the way, before the very end of his brilliant, interrupted too early career , transformed, by the power of great talent, the pale figure of Moshkin in “The Bachelor” into a living and touching face.”

Creativity flourishes

The undoubted success that befell Turgenev at the very first stages of his literary activity did not satisfy him: he carried in his soul the consciousness of the possibility of more significant plans - and since what was poured out on paper did not correspond to their breadth, he “had a firm intention to abandon literature altogether." When, at the end of 1846, Nekrasov and Panaev decided to publish Sovremennik, Turgenev, however, found a “trifle”, to which both the author himself and Panaev attached so little importance that it was not even placed in the fiction department, and in “Mixture” of the first book of Sovremennik, 1847. To make the public even more lenient, Panaev added to the already modest title of the essay: "Khor and Kalinich" added another title: "From the Hunter's Notes". The public turned out to be more sensitive than the experienced writer. By 1847, the democratic or, as it was then called, “philanthropic” mood began to reach its highest intensity in the best literary circles. Prepared by Belinsky’s fiery sermon, literary youth are imbued with new spiritual movements; in one or two years, a whole galaxy of future famous and simply good writers - Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Goncharov, Turgenev, Grigorovich, Druzhinin, Pleshcheev, etc. - appear with a number of works that make a radical revolution in literature and immediately impart to it the mood that then received its national expression in the era of great reforms.

Among these literary youth, Turgenev took first place because he directed all the power of his high talent to the most painful place of the pre-reform society - serfdom. Encouraged by the major success of "Khorya and Kalinich"; he wrote a number of essays, which were published in 1852 under the general name "Hunter's Notes". The book played a first-class historical role. There is direct evidence of the strong impression she made on the heir to the throne, the future liberator of the peasants. All the generally sensitive spheres of the ruling classes succumbed to her charm. "Notes of a Hunter" plays the same role in the history of the liberation of peasants as in the history of the liberation of blacks - Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin", but with the difference that Turgenev's book is incomparably higher in artistic terms.

Explaining in his memoirs why he went abroad at the very beginning of 1847, where most of the essays in “Notes of a Hunter” were written, Turgenev says: “... I could not breathe the same air, stay close to what I hated; It was necessary to move away from my enemy so that from my very distance I could attack him more strongly. In my eyes, this enemy had a certain image, bore a well-known name: this enemy was serfdom. Under this name I collected and concentrated everything against which I decided to fight to the end - with which I vowed never to reconcile... This was my Hannibal oath."

Turgenev's categoricalness, however, refers only to the internal motives of "Notes of a Hunter", and not to their execution. The painfully picky censorship of the 40s would not have missed any bright “protest”, any bright picture of the outrages of the serfs. Indeed, serfdom itself is directly touched upon in “Notes of a Hunter” with restraint and caution. “Notes of a Hunter” is a “protest” of a very special kind, strong not so much in denunciation, not so much in hatred, but in love.

People's life is passed through here through the prism of the mental makeup of a person from the circle of Belinsky and Stankevich. The main feature of this type is the subtlety of feelings, admiration for beauty and, in general, the desire to be not of this world, to rise above the “dirty reality.” A significant part of the folk types in Notes of a Hunter belong to people of this type.

Here is the romantic Kalinich, who comes to life only when they tell him about the beauties of nature - mountains, waterfalls, etc., here is Kasyan from the Beautiful Sword, from whose quiet soul something completely unearthly emanates; here is Yasha (“Singers”), whose singing touches even the visitors to the tavern, even the tavern owner himself. Along with deeply poetic natures, “Notes of a Hunter” seeks out majestic types among the people. The single-palace Ovsyanikov, the rich peasant Khor (for whom Turgenev was already reproached for idealization in the 40s) are majestically calm, ideally honest and with their “simple but sound mind” they perfectly understand the most complex social-state relations. With what amazing calmness do the forester Maxim and the miller Vasily die in the essay “Death”; how much purely romantic charm there is in the darkly majestic figure of the inexorably honest Biryuk!

Of the female folk types in Notes of a Hunter, Matryona deserves special attention ( "Karataev"), Marina ( "Date") and Lukerya ( "Living Relics" ) ; the last essay lay in Turgenev’s briefcase and was published only a quarter of a century later, in the charity collection “Skladchina”, 1874): they are all deeply feminine, capable of high self-denial. And if we add to these male and female figures of “Notes of a Hunter” the amazingly cute kids from "Bezhina Luga", then you get a whole one-color gallery of faces, about which it is impossible to say that the author gave here the people's life in its entirety. From the field of folk life, on which nettles, thistles, and burdocks grow, the author picked only beautiful and fragrant flowers and made of them a wonderful bouquet, the fragrance of which was all the stronger because the representatives of the ruling class depicted in “Notes of a Hunter” amaze with its moral ugliness. Mr. Zverkov ("Ermolai and Melnichikha") considers himself a very kind person; he is even offended when a serf girl throws herself at his feet with a prayer, because in his opinion “a person should never lose his dignity”; but with deep indignation he refuses permission for this “ungrateful” girl to get married, because his wife will then be left without a good maid. Retired guards officer Arkady Pavlych Penochkin ( "The mayor") arranged his house completely in English; At his table everything is superbly served and his well-trained footmen serve excellently. But one of them served red wine unheated; the graceful European frowned and, not embarrassed by the presence of a stranger, ordered “about Fyodor... make arrangements.” Mardarii Apollonych Stegunov ( "Two Landowners") - he’s a very good-natured guy: he sits idyllically on the balcony on a beautiful summer evening and drinks tea. Suddenly the sound of measured and frequent blows reached our ears. Stegunov “listened, nodded his head, took a sip, and, putting the saucer on the table, said with the kindest smile and, as if involuntarily echoing the blows: chyuki-chyuki-chuk! chyuki-chuk! chyuki-chuk!” It turned out that they were punishing “the naughty Vasya,” the bartender “with big sideburns.” Thanks to the stupidest whim of a feisty lady ("Karataev"), Matryona's fate takes a tragic turn. These are the representatives of the landowner class in “Notes of a Hunter.” If there are decent people among them, then it is either Karataev, who ends his life as a tavern regular, or the brawler Tchertop-hanov, or the pathetic hanger-on - the Hamlet of Shchigrovsky district. Of course, all this makes “Notes of a Hunter” a one-sided work; but it is that holy one-sidedness that leads to great results. The content of “Notes of a Hunter”, in any case, was not invented - and that is why in the soul of every reader, in all its irresistibility, the conviction grew that people in whom the best aspects of human nature are so vividly embodied should not be deprived of the most basic human rights. In a purely artistic sense, “Notes of a Hunter” fully corresponds to the great idea underlying them, and this harmony of concept and form is the main reason for their success. All the best qualities of Turgenev’s talent received vivid expression here. If conciseness is generally one of the main features of Turgenev, who did not write voluminous works at all, then in “Notes of a Hunter” it is brought to the highest perfection. In two or three strokes, Turgenev draws the most complex character: let us cite as an example the final two pages of the essay, where the spiritual appearance of “Biryuk” receives such unexpected illumination. Along with the energy of passion, the power of impression is increased by a general, surprisingly soft and poetic coloring. The landscape painting of "Notes of a Hunter" has no equal in all our literature. From the Central Russian, at first glance colorless, landscape, Turgenev was able to extract the most soulful tones, at the same time melancholic and sweetly invigorating. In general, Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter took first place among Russian prose writers in terms of technique. If Tolstoy surpasses him in breadth of scope, Dostoevsky in depth and originality, then Turgenev is the first Russian stylist.

Personal life of Turgenev

In his mouth, the “great, powerful, truthful and free Russian language,” to which the last of his “Prose Poems” is dedicated, received its most noble and elegant expression. Turgenev's personal life, at a time when his creative activity was unfolding so brilliantly, was not fun. Disagreements and clashes with his mother became more and more acute - and this not only unraveled him morally, but also led to an extremely cramped financial situation, which was complicated by the fact that everyone considered him a rich man.

Turgenev's mysterious friendship with the famous singer Viardot-Garcia began in 1845. Repeated attempts were made to use Turgenev’s story “Correspondence” to characterize this friendship, with an episode of the hero’s “doglike” affection for a foreign ballerina, a stupid and completely uneducated creature. It would, however, be a grave mistake to see this as directly autobiographical material.

Viardot is an unusually subtle artistic person; her husband was a wonderful man and an outstanding critic of art (see VI, 612), whom Turgenev greatly appreciated and who, in turn, highly regarded Turgenev and translated his works into French. There is also no doubt that in the early days of his friendship with Viardot’s family, Turgenev, to whom his mother did not give a penny for his affection for the “damned gypsy” for three whole years, bore very little resemblance to the type of “rich Russian” popular behind the scenes. But, at the same time, the deep bitterness that pervaded the episode told in “Correspondence” undoubtedly also had a subjective lining. If we turn to Fet’s memoirs and to some of Turgenev’s letters, we will see, on the one hand, how right Turgenev’s mother was when she called him “monogamous,” and on the other, that, having lived in close communication with the Viardot family for 38 years, he nevertheless felt deeply and hopelessly alone. On this basis, Turgenev’s depiction of love grew, so characteristic even of his always melancholic creative manner.

Turgenev is the singer of unsuccessful love par excellence. He has almost no happy ending, the last chord is always sad. At the same time, none of the Russian writers paid so much attention to love, no one idealized a woman to such an extent. This was an expression of his desire to lose himself in a dream.

Turgenev's heroes are always timid and indecisive in their affairs of the heart: Turgenev himself was like that. - In 1842, Turgenev, at the request of his mother, entered the office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was a very bad official, and the head of the office, Dahl, although he was also a writer, was very pedantic about his service. The matter ended with the fact that after serving for 1 1/2 years, Turgenev, much to the chagrin and displeasure of his mother, retired. In 1847, Turgenev, together with the Viardot family, went abroad, lived in Berlin, Dresden, visited the sick Belinsky in Silesia, with whom he had the closest friendship, and then went to France. His affairs were in the most deplorable situation; he lived on loans from friends, advances from editorial offices, and even by reducing his needs to the minimum. Under the pretext of the need for solitude, he spent the winter months in complete solitude, either in Viardot's empty dacha or in the abandoned castle of Georges Sand, eating whatever he could find. The February Revolution and the June days found him in Paris, but did not make a particular impression on him. Deeply imbued with the general principles of liberalism, Turgenev in his political convictions was always, in his own words, a “gradualist,” and the radical socialist excitement of the 40s, which captured many of his peers, affected him relatively little.

In 1850, Turgenev returned to Russia, but he never met his mother, who died that same year. Having shared his mother's large fortune with his brother, he eased the hardships of the peasants he inherited as much as possible.

In 1852, a thunderstorm unexpectedly struck him. After Gogol's death, Turgenev wrote an obituary, which was not missed by the St. Petersburg censorship, because, as the famous Musin-Pushkin put it, “it is criminal to speak so enthusiastically about such a writer.” Only in order to show that “cold” Petersburg was also excited by the great loss, Turgenev sent an article to Moscow, V.P. Botkin, and he published it in Moskovskie Vedomosti. This was seen as a “rebellion,” and the author of “Notes of a Hunter” was taken to the moving house, where he stayed for a whole month. Then he was exiled to his village and only thanks to the increased efforts of Count Alexei Tolstoy, after two years he again received the right to live in the capitals.

Turgenev’s literary activity from 1847, when the first essays of the “Notes of a Hunter” appeared, until 1856, when “Rudin” began the period of great novels that most glorified him, was expressed, in addition to the “Notes of a Hunter” completed in 1851 and dramatic works, in a number of more or less remarkable stories: “The Diary of an Extra Man” (1850), “Three Meetings” (1852), “Two Friends” (1854), “Mumu” ​​(1854), “The Calm” (1854), “Yakov Pasynkov "(1855), "Correspondence" (1856). Apart from “Three Meetings,” which is a rather insignificant anecdote, beautifully told and containing an amazingly poetic description of an Italian night and a Russian summer evening, all the other stories can easily be combined into one creative mood of deep melancholy and some kind of hopeless pessimism. This mood is closely connected with the despondency that gripped the thinking part of Russian society under the influence of the reaction of the first half of the 50s (see Russia, XXVIII, 634 et seq.). Owing to a good half of his significance to ideological sensitivity and the ability to capture the “moments” of public life, Turgenev reflected the despondency of the era more clearly than his other peers.

It was now in his creative synthesis that type of "extra person"- this is a terribly vivid expression of that phase of the Russian public, when a non-vulgar person, a wreck in matters of the heart, had absolutely nothing to do. The Hamlet of Shchigrovsky district ("Notes of a Hunter") who stupidly ends his cleverly started life, Vyazovnin who stupidly dies ("Two Friends"), the hero of "Correspondence", exclaiming with horror that "we Russians have no other task in life than the development of our personality" , Veretyev and Masha ("The Calm"), of which the first, the emptiness and aimlessness of Russian life leads to a tavern, and the second to a pond - all these types of useless and distorted people were born and embodied in very brightly written figures precisely in the years of that timelessness, when even the moderate Granovsky exclaimed: “It’s good for Belinsky, who died on time.” Let's add here from the last essays of "Notes of a Hunter" the poignant poetry of "The Singers", "Dates", "Kasyan with the Beautiful Sword", the sad story of Yakov Pasynkov, and finally "Mumu", which Carlyle considered the most touching story in the world - and we get a whole strip the darkest despair.

The far from complete collected works of Turgenev (there are no poems and many articles) have gone through 4 editions since 1868. One collection of Turgenev's works (with poems) was given at Niva (1898). The poems were published under the editorship of S.N. Krivenko (2 editions, 1885 and 1891). In 1884, the Literary Fund published “The First Collection of Letters of I.S. Turgenev,” but many of Turgenev’s letters, scattered across various magazines, are still awaiting a separate publication. In 1901, letters from Turgenev to French friends, collected by I.D., were published in Paris. Galperin-Kaminsky. Part of Turgenev's correspondence with Herzen was published abroad by Drahomanov. Separate books and brochures about Turgenev were published by: Averyanov, Agafonov, Burenin, Byleev, Vengerov, Ch. Vetrinsky, Govorukha-Otrok (Yu. Nikolaev), Dobrovsky, Michel Delines, Evfstafiev, Ivanov, E. Kavelina, Kramp, Lyuboshits, Mandelstam, Mizko, Mourrier, Nevzorov, Nezelenov, Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, Ostrogorsky, J. Pavlovsky (French), Evg. Soloviev, Strakhov, Sukhomlinov, Tursch (German), Chernyshev, Chudinov, Jungmeister and others. A number of extensive articles about Turgenev were included in the collected works of Annenkov, Belinsky, Apollo Grigoriev, Dobrolyubov, Druzhinin, Mikhailovsky, Pisarev, Skabichevsky, Nik. Solovyov, Chernyshevsky, Shelgunov. Significant excerpts from both these and other critical reviews (Avdeev, Antonovich, Dudyshkin, De-Poulay, Longinov, Tkachev, etc.) are given in the collection of V. Zelinsky: “Collection of critical materials for the study of the works of I.S. Turgenev” (3rd ed. 1899). Reviews by Renan, Abu, Schmidt, Brandes, de Vogüe, Merimee and others are given in the book: “Foreign Criticism about Turgenev” (1884). Numerous biographical materials scattered throughout magazines of the 1880s and 90s are listed in the “Review of the Works of Deceased Writers” by D.D. Yazykova, issue III - VIII.

aliases: .....въ; -e-; I.S.T.; I.T.; L.; Nedobobov, Jeremiah; T.; T…; T.L.; T......v; ***

Russian realist writer, poet, publicist, playwright, translator, one of the classics of Russian literature

Ivan Turgenev

short biography

Outstanding Russian writer, classic of world literature, poet, publicist, memoirist, critic, playwright, translator, corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences - born on November 9 (October 28, old style) 1818 in the city of Orel. His father, Sergei Nikolaevich, was a retired officer, his mother Varvara Petrovna was a representative of a wealthy noble family. It was on her estate in the village of Spasskoye-Lutovinovo that Ivan Turgenev spent his childhood years.

There he received his primary education, and in order for it to be continued in a dignified manner, in 1827 the Turgenev family bought a house in Moscow and moved there. Then the parents went abroad, and Ivan was brought up in a boarding school - first at Weidenhammer, later at Krause. In 1833, young Turgenev became a student at Moscow State University, Faculty of Literature. After his older brother joined the Guards Artillery, the Turgenevs moved to St. Petersburg and to the local university, but Ivan was also transferred to the Faculty of Philosophy, graduating in 1837.

His debut in the literary field dates back to the same period of his biography. His first attempts at writing were several lyrical poems written in 1834 and the dramatic poem “Wall”. P.A. Pletnev, a professor of literature and his teacher, noticed the germs of undoubted talent. By 1837, the number of short poems written by Turgenev approached one hundred. In 1838, Turgenev’s poems “Evening” and “To the Venus of Medicine” were published in the Sovremennik magazine, edited after the death of Pushkin by P. A. Pletnev.

To become an even more educated person, the future writer in the spring of 1838 went to Germany, to Berlin, and attended university lectures on Greek and Roman literature. Returning briefly to Russia in 1839, he left it again in 1840, living in Germany, Austria, and Italy. Turgenev returned to his estate in 1841, and the following year he petitioned Moscow University to be allowed to take the exam for the degree of Master of Philosophy.

In 1843, Turgenev became an official in the ministerial office, but his ambitious impulses quickly cooled down and interest in the service was quickly lost. The poem “Parasha” published in the same 1843 and its approval by V. Belinsky led Turgenev to the decision to devote all his energies to literature. The same year was also significant for Turgenev’s biography due to his acquaintance with Pauline Viardot, an outstanding French singer who came to St. Petersburg on tour. Having seen her at the opera house, the writer was introduced to her on November 1, 1843, but then she did not pay much attention to the still little-known writer. After the end of the tour, Turgenev, despite his mother’s disapproval, went with the Viardots to Paris, since then for several years accompanying them on tours abroad.

In 1846, Ivan Sergeevich took an active part in updating the Sovremennik magazine, Nekrasov became his best friend. During 1850-1852. Russia and abroad alternately become Turgenev’s place of residence. Published in 1852, a series of short stories, united under the title “Notes of a Hunter,” was written mainly in Germany and made Turgenev a world-famous writer; in addition, the book largely influenced the further development of national literature. In the next decade, the most significant works in Turgenev’s creative heritage were published: “Rudin”, “The Noble Nest”, “On the Eve”, “Fathers and Sons”. The break with Sovremennik and Nekrasov due to Dobrolyubov’s article “When will the real day come?” dates back to this same period. with impartial criticism of Turgenev and his novel “On the Eve”. Having given Nekrasov an ultimatum as a publisher, Turgenev turned out to be a loser.

In the early 60s. Turgenev moves to live in Baden-Baden and becomes an active participant in Western European cultural life. He corresponds or maintains relationships with many celebrities, for example Charles Dickenson, Thackeray, T. Gautier, Anatole France, Maupassant, George Sand, Victor Hugo, and turns into a promoter of Russian literature abroad. On the other hand, thanks to him, Western authors become closer to his reading compatriots. In 1874 (by this time Turgenev had moved to Paris), he, together with Zola, Daudet, Flaubert, Edmond Goncourt, organized the famous “bachelor dinners of five” in the capital's restaurants. For some period, Ivan Sergeevich turns into the most famous, popular and widely read Russian writer on the European continent. The International Literary Congress, held in Paris in 1878, elected him vice-president, and since 1877 Turgenev has been an honorary doctor of the University of Oxford.

Living outside of Russia did not mean that Turgenev moved away from her life and problems. The novel “Smoke,” written in 1867, caused a huge resonance in its homeland; the novel was subjected to fierce criticism from parties occupying opposite positions. In 1877, the largest novel in terms of volume, Nov, was published, summing up the writer’s reflections of the 70s.

In the spring of 1882, a serious illness, which became fatal for Turgenev, appeared for the first time. When physical suffering subsided, Turgenev continued to compose; literally a few months before his death, the first part of his “Poems in Prose” was published. Myxosarcoma claimed the life of the great writer on September 3 (August 22, O.S.), 1883. Relatives carried out the will of Turgenev, who died near Paris in the town of Bougival, and transported his body to St. Petersburg, to the Volkovo cemetery. The classic was accompanied on his final journey by a considerable number of admirers of his talent.

Biography from Wikipedia

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev(November 9, 1818, Orel, Russian Empire - September 3, 1883, Bougival, France) - Russian realist writer, poet, publicist, playwright, translator. One of the classics of Russian literature who made the most significant contribution to its development in the second half of the 19th century. Corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of Russian language and literature (1860), honorary doctor of Oxford University (1879), honorary member of Moscow University (1880).

The artistic system he created influenced the poetics of not only Russian, but also Western European novels of the second half of the 19th century. Ivan Turgenev was the first in Russian literature to begin to study the personality of the “new man” - the sixties, his moral qualities and psychological characteristics, thanks to him the term “nihilist” began to be widely used in the Russian language. He was a promoter of Russian literature and drama in the West.

The study of the works of I. S. Turgenev is a mandatory part of general education school programs in Russia. The most famous works are the cycle of stories “Notes of a Hunter”, the story “Mumu”, the story “Asya”, the novels “The Noble Nest”, “Fathers and Sons”.

Origin and early years

The family of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev came from an ancient family of Tula nobles, the Turgenevs. In a memorial book, the mother of the future writer wrote: “ On Monday, October 28, 1818, a son, Ivan, 12 inches tall, was born in Orel, in his home, at 12 o’clock in the morning. Baptized on the 4th of November, Feodor Semenovich Uvarov with his sister Fedosya Nikolaevna Teplova».

Ivan's father Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev (1793-1834) served at that time in a cavalry regiment. The carefree lifestyle of the handsome cavalry guard upset his finances, and to improve his position, in 1816 he entered into a marriage of convenience with the very wealthy Varvara Petrovna Lutovinova (1787-1850). In 1821, my father retired with the rank of colonel of a cuirassier regiment. Ivan was the second son in the family. The mother of the future writer, Varvara Petrovna, came from a wealthy noble family. Her marriage to Sergei Nikolaevich was not happy. In 1830, the father left the family and died in 1834, leaving three sons - Nikolai, Ivan and Sergei, who died early from epilepsy. The mother was a domineering and despotic woman. She herself lost her father at an early age, suffered from the cruel attitude of her mother (whom her grandson later portrayed as an old woman in the essay “Death”), and from a violent, drinking stepfather, who often beat her. Due to constant beatings and humiliation, she later moved in with her uncle, after whose death she became the owner of a magnificent estate and 5,000 souls.

Varvara Petrovna was a difficult woman. Feudal habits coexisted in her with being well-read and educated; she combined concern for raising children with family despotism. Ivan was also subjected to maternal beatings, despite the fact that he was considered her beloved son. The boy was taught literacy by frequently changing French and German tutors. In Varvara Petrovna’s family, everyone spoke exclusively French to each other, even prayers in the house were said in French. She traveled widely and was an enlightened woman who read a lot, but also mainly in French. But her native language and literature were not alien to her: she herself had excellent, figurative Russian speech, and Sergei Nikolaevich demanded that the children write letters to him in Russian during their father’s absences. The Turgenev family maintained connections with V. A. Zhukovsky and M. N. Zagoskin. Varvara Petrovna followed the latest literature, was well informed about the works of N. M. Karamzin, V. A. Zhukovsky, A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov and N. V. Gogol, whom she readily quoted in letters to her son.

A love of Russian literature was also instilled in young Turgenev by one of the serf valets (who later became the prototype of Punin in the story “Punin and Baburin”). Until he was nine years old, Ivan Turgenev lived on his mother’s hereditary estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, 10 km from Mtsensk, Oryol province. In 1822, the Turgenev family made a trip to Europe, during which four-year-old Ivan almost died in Bern, falling from the railing of a moat with bears (Berengraben); His father saved him by catching him by the leg. In 1827, the Turgenevs, in order to give their children an education, settled in Moscow, buying a house on Samotek. The future writer studied first at the Weidenhammer boarding school, then at the boarding school of the director of the Lazarevsky Institute, I. F. Krause.

Education. Beginning of literary activity

In 1833, at the age of 15, Turgenev entered the literature department of Moscow University. At the same time, A. I. Herzen and V. G. Belinsky studied here. A year later, after Ivan’s older brother joined the Guards Artillery, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where Ivan Turgenev transferred to the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg University. At the university, T. N. Granovsky, the future famous scientist-historian of the Western school, became his friend.

Ivan Turgenev in his youth. Drawing by K. A. Gorbunov, 1838

At first, Turgenev wanted to become a poet. In 1834, as a third-year student, he wrote the dramatic poem “Stheno” in iambic pentameter. The young author showed these samples of writing to his teacher, professor of Russian literature P. A. Pletnev. During one of his lectures, Pletnev quite strictly analyzed this poem, without revealing its authorship, but at the same time also admitted that there was “something in the author.” These words prompted the young poet to write a number of more poems, two of which Pletnev published in 1838 in the Sovremennik magazine, of which he was the editor. They were published under the signature “…..въ”. The debut poems were “Evening” and “To the Venus of Medicine”.

Turgenev's first publication appeared in 1836 - in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, he published a detailed review of A. N. Muravyov's “On a Journey to Holy Places.” By 1837, he had already written about a hundred short poems and several poems (the unfinished “The Old Man’s Tale,” “Calm on the Sea,” “Phantasmagoria on a Moonlit Night,” “Dream”).

After graduation. Abroad.

In 1836, Turgenev graduated from the university with the degree of a full student. Dreaming of scientific activity, the following year he passed the final exam and received a candidate's degree. In 1838 he went to Germany, where he settled in Berlin and took up his studies seriously. At the University of Berlin he attended lectures on the history of Roman and Greek literature, and at home he studied the grammar of ancient Greek and Latin. Knowledge of ancient languages ​​allowed him to read the ancient classics fluently. During his studies, he became friends with the Russian writer and thinker N.V. Stankevich, who had a noticeable influence on him. Turgenev attended lectures by the Hegelians and became interested in German idealism with its teaching about world development, about the “absolute spirit” and about the high calling of the philosopher and poet. In general, the entire way of Western European life made a strong impression on Turgenev. The young student came to the conclusion that only the assimilation of the basic principles of universal human culture can lead Russia out of the darkness in which it is immersed. In this sense, he became a convinced “Westerner.”

In the 1830-1850s, an extensive circle of literary acquaintances of the writer was formed. Back in 1837, there were fleeting meetings with A.S. Pushkin. At the same time, Turgenev met V. A. Zhukovsky, A. V. Nikitenko, A. V. Koltsov, and a little later - with M. Yu. Lermontov. Turgenev had only a few meetings with Lermontov, which did not lead to a close acquaintance, but Lermontov’s work had a certain influence on him. He tried to master the rhythm and stanza, stylistics and syntactic features of Lermontov's poetry. Thus, the poem “The Old Landowner” (1841) is in some places close in form to Lermontov’s “Testament,” and in “The Ballad” (1841) the influence of “Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov” is felt. But the most tangible connection with Lermontov’s work is in the poem “Confession” (1845), the accusatory pathos of which brings it closer to Lermontov’s poem “Duma”.

In May 1839, the old house in Spassky burned down, and Turgenev returned to his homeland, but already in 1840 he went abroad again, visiting Germany, Italy and Austria. Impressed by his meeting with a girl in Frankfurt am Main, Turgenev later wrote the story “Spring Waters.” In 1841, Ivan returned to Lutovinovo.

Turgenev's poems prominently featured in a famous magazine, 1843, No. 9

At the beginning of 1842, he submitted a request to Moscow University for admission to the exam for the degree of Master of Philosophy, but at that time there was no full-time professor of philosophy at the university, and his request was rejected. Unable to find a job in Moscow, Turgenev satisfactorily passed the exam for a master's degree in Greek and Latin philology in Latin at St. Petersburg University and wrote a dissertation for the literature department. But by this time, the craving for scientific activity had cooled, and literary creativity began to attract more and more. Having refused to defend his dissertation, he served until 1844 with the rank of collegiate secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In 1843, Turgenev wrote the poem “Parasha”. Not really hoping for a positive review, he nevertheless took the copy to V.G. Belinsky. Belinsky praised Parasha, publishing his review in Otechestvennye zapiski two months later. From that time on, their acquaintance began, which later grew into a strong friendship; Turgenev was even godfather to Belinsky’s son, Vladimir. The poem was published in the spring of 1843 as a separate book under the initials “T. L." (Turgenev-Lutovinov). In the 1840s, in addition to Pletnev and Belinsky, Turgenev met with A. A. Fet.

In November 1843, Turgenev created the poem “On the Road (Foggy Morning),” set to music over the years by several composers, including A.F. Gedicke and G.L. Catoire. The most famous, however, is the romance version, originally published under the signature “Music of Abaza”; its affiliation with V.V. Abaza, E.A. Abaza or Yu.F. Abaza has not been definitively established. After its publication, the poem was perceived as a reflection of Turgenev's love for Pauline Viardot, whom he met at this time.

In 1844, the poem “Pop” was written, which the writer himself characterized rather as fun, devoid of any “deep and significant ideas.” Nevertheless, the poem attracted public interest for its anti-clerical nature. The poem was truncated by Russian censorship, but was published in its entirety abroad.

In 1846, the stories “Breter” and “Three Portraits” were published. In “The Breter,” which became Turgenev’s second story, the writer tried to imagine the struggle between Lermontov’s influence and the desire to discredit posturing. The plot for his third story, “Three Portraits,” was drawn from the Lutovinov family chronicle.

Creativity flourishes

Since 1847, Ivan Turgenev participated in the transformed Sovremennik, where he became close to N. A. Nekrasov and P. V. Annenkov. The magazine published his first feuilleton, “Modern Notes,” and began publishing the first chapters of “Notes of a Hunter.” In the very first issue of Sovremennik, the story “Khor and Kalinich” was published, which opened countless editions of the famous book. The subtitle “From the Notes of a Hunter” was added by editor I. I. Panaev to attract the attention of readers to the story. The success of the story turned out to be enormous, and this gave Turgenev the idea of ​​writing a number of others of the same kind. According to Turgenev, “Notes of a Hunter” was the fulfillment of his Hannibal oath to fight to the end against the enemy whom he hated since childhood. “This enemy had a certain image, bore a well-known name: this enemy was serfdom.” To fulfill his intention, Turgenev decided to leave Russia. “I could not,” Turgenev wrote, “breathe the same air, stay close to what I hated. I needed to move away from my enemy so that from my very distance I could attack him more strongly.”

In 1847, Turgenev and Belinsky went abroad and in 1848 lived in Paris, where he witnessed revolutionary events. Having witnessed the murder of hostages, many attacks, the construction and fall of the barricades of the February French Revolution, he forever endured a deep disgust for revolutions in general. A little later, he became close to A. I. Herzen and fell in love with Ogarev’s wife N. A. Tuchkova.

Dramaturgy

The late 1840s - early 1850s became the time of Turgenev's most intense activity in the field of drama and a time of reflection on issues of history and theory of drama. In 1848 he wrote such plays as “Where it is thin, there it breaks” and “Freeloader”, in 1849 - “Breakfast at the Leader” and “Bachelor”, in 1850 - “A Month in the Country”, in 1851 -m - “Provincial”. Of these, “Freeloader”, “Bachelor”, “Provincial Woman” and “A Month in the Country” enjoyed success thanks to excellent stage performances. The success of “The Bachelor” was especially dear to him, which became possible largely thanks to the performing skills of A. E. Martynov, who played in four of his plays. Turgenev formulated his views on the situation of Russian theater and the tasks of dramaturgy back in 1846. He believed that the crisis in the theatrical repertoire observed at that time could be overcome by the efforts of writers committed to Gogol's dramaturism. Turgenev also counted himself among the followers of Gogol the playwright.

To master the literary techniques of drama, the writer also worked on translations of Byron and Shakespeare. At the same time, he did not try to copy Shakespeare’s dramatic techniques, he only interpreted his images, and all attempts by his contemporaries-playwrights to use Shakespeare’s work as a role model and to borrow his theatrical techniques only caused Turgenev irritation. In 1847 he wrote: “Shakespeare’s shadow looms over all dramatic writers; they cannot rid themselves of memories; These unfortunates read too much and lived too little.”

1850s

Burning of “Notes of a Hunter”, caricature by L. N. Vaksel. 1852. The writer in a hunting suit, with shackles on his legs. Musin-Pushkin points to the prison; he has the selected manuscripts and Turgenev’s gun. Behind Turgenev is a fire with manuscripts. In the lower left corner there is a cat clutching a nightingale in its paws

In 1850, Turgenev returned to Russia, but he never saw his mother, who died that same year. Together with his brother Nikolai, he shared his mother’s large fortune and, if possible, tried to ease the hardships of the peasants he inherited.

In 1850-1852 he lived either in Russia or abroad, and saw N.V. Gogol. After Gogol's death, Turgenev wrote an obituary, which St. Petersburg censorship did not allow. The reason for her dissatisfaction was that, as the chairman of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee M. N. Musin-Pushkin put it, “it is criminal to speak so enthusiastically about such a writer.” Then Ivan Sergeevich sent the article to Moscow, V.P. Botkin, who published it in Moskovskie Vedomosti. The authorities saw a rebellion in the text, and the author was placed in a moving house, where he spent a month. On May 18, Turgenev was exiled to his native village, and only thanks to the efforts of Count A.K. Tolstoy, two years later the writer again received the right to live in the capitals.

There is an opinion that the real reason for the exile was not Gogol’s obituary, but the excessive radicalism of Turgenev’s views, manifested in sympathy for Belinsky, suspiciously frequent trips abroad, sympathetic stories about serfs, and a laudatory review of Turgenev by the emigrant Herzen. In addition, it is necessary to take into account V.P. Botkin’s warning to Turgenev in a letter on March 10, so that he should be careful in his letters, referring to third-party transmitters of advice to be more careful (the said letter from Turgenev is completely unknown, but its excerpt - from a copy in the file of the III Department - contains a harsh review of M. N. Musin-Pushkin). The enthusiastic tone of the article about Gogol only filled the gendarmerie's patience, becoming an external reason for punishment, the meaning of which was thought out by the authorities in advance. Turgenev feared that his arrest and exile would interfere with the publication of the first edition of Notes of a Hunter, but his fears were not justified - in August 1852 the book passed censorship and was published.

However, the censor V.V. Lvov, who allowed “Notes of a Hunter” to be published, was, by personal order of Nicholas I, dismissed from service and deprived of his pension (“The highest forgiveness” followed on December 6, 1853). Russian censorship also imposed a ban on the re-publication of “Notes of a Hunter,” explaining this step by the fact that Turgenev, on the one hand, poeticized the serfs, and on the other hand, depicted “that these peasants are oppressed, that the landowners behave indecently and It’s illegal... finally, for a peasant to live more freely.”

Employees of the Sovremennik magazine. Top row: L. N. Tolstoy, D. V. Grigorovich; bottom row: I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, A. V. Druzhinin, A. N. Ostrovsky. Photo by S. L. Levitsky, February 15, 1856

During his exile in Spassky, Turgenev went hunting, read books, wrote stories, played chess, listened to Beethoven’s “Coriolanus” performed by A.P. Tyutcheva and her sister, who lived in Spassky at that time, and from time to time was subjected to raids by the police officer .

In 1852, while still in exile in Spassky-Lutovinovo, he wrote the now textbook story “Mumu”. Most of the “Notes of a Hunter” were created by the writer in Germany. “Notes of a Hunter” was published in Paris in a separate edition in 1854, although at the beginning of the Crimean War this publication was in the nature of anti-Russian propaganda, and Turgenev was forced to publicly express his protest against the poor quality French translation by Ernest Charrière. After the death of Nicholas I, four of the writer’s most significant works were published one after another: “Rudin” (1856), “The Noble Nest” (1859), “On the Eve” (1860) and “Fathers and Sons” (1862). The first two were published in Nekrasov’s Sovremennik, the other two were published in M. N. Katkov’s Russky Vestnik.

Sovremennik employees I. S. Turgenev, N. A. Nekrasov, I. I. Panaev, M. N. Longinov, V. P. Gaevsky, D. V. Grigorovich sometimes gathered in the “warlocks” circle organized by A. V. Druzhinin. The humorous improvisations of the “warlocks” sometimes went beyond censorship, so they had to be published abroad. Later, Turgenev took part in the activities of the “Society for Benefiting Needy Writers and Scientists” (Literary Fund), founded on the initiative of the same A.V. Druzhinin. From the end of 1856, the writer collaborated with the magazine “Library for Reading,” published under the editorship of A. V. Druzhinin. But his editorship did not bring the expected success to the publication, and Turgenev, who in 1856 hoped for close magazine success, in 1861 called the “Library,” edited by A.F. Pisemsky by that time, “a dead hole.”

In the autumn of 1855, Turgenev's circle of friends was replenished by Leo Tolstoy. In September of the same year, Tolstoy’s story “Cutting the Forest” was published in Sovremennik with a dedication to I. S. Turgenev.

1860s

Turgenev took an active part in the discussion of the upcoming Peasant Reform, participated in the development of various collective letters, draft addresses addressed to Emperor Alexander II, protests, etc. From the first months of publication of Herzen’s “Bell,” Turgenev was his active collaborator. He himself did not write for Kolokol, but helped in collecting materials and preparing them for publication. An equally important role of Turgenev was to mediate between A.I. Herzen and those correspondents from Russia who, for various reasons, did not want to be in direct relations with the disgraced London emigrant. In addition, Turgenev sent detailed review letters to Herzen, information from which, without the author’s signature, was also published in Kolokol. At the same time, Turgenev every time spoke out against the harsh tone of Herzen’s materials and excessive criticism of government decisions: “Please don’t scold Alexander Nikolayevich, - otherwise he is already cruelly scolded by all the reactionaries in St. Petersburg, - why bother him like that from both sides , - this way he will probably lose his spirit.”

In 1860, Sovremennik published an article by N. A. Dobrolyubov, “When will the real day come?”, in which the critic spoke very flatteringly about the new novel “On the Eve” and Turgenev’s work in general. Nevertheless, Turgenev was not satisfied with Dobrolyubov’s far-reaching conclusions that he made after reading the novel. Dobrolyubov connected the idea of ​​Turgenev’s work with the events of the approaching revolutionary transformation of Russia, which the liberal Turgenev could not reconcile with. Dobrolyubov wrote: “Then a complete, sharply and vividly outlined image of the Russian Insarov will appear in literature. And we won’t have to wait long for him: this is guaranteed by the feverish, painful impatience with which we await his appearance in life.<…>This day will finally come! And, in any case, the eve is not far from the next day: just some night separates them!...” The writer gave N.A. Nekrasov an ultimatum: either he, Turgenev, or Dobrolyubov. Nekrasov preferred Dobrolyubov. After this, Turgenev left Sovremennik and stopped communicating with Nekrasov, and subsequently Dobrolyubov became one of the prototypes for the image of Bazarov in the novel Fathers and Sons.

Turgenev gravitated toward the circle of Westernized writers who professed the principles of “pure art,” which opposed the tendentious creativity of the common revolutionaries: P. V. Annenkov, V. P. Botkin, D. V. Grigorovich, A. V. Druzhinin. For a short time Leo Tolstoy also joined this circle. For some time, Tolstoy lived in Turgenev’s apartment. After Tolstoy’s marriage to S.A. Bers, Turgenev found a close relative in Tolstoy, but even before the wedding, in May 1861, when both prose writers were visiting A.A. Fet on the Stepanovo estate, a serious quarrel occurred between them, almost which ended in a duel and spoiled the relationship between the writers for 17 long years. For some time, the writer developed complex relationships with Fet himself, as well as with some other contemporaries - F. M. Dostoevsky, I. A. Goncharov.

In 1862, good relations with former friends of Turgenev’s youth, A.I. Herzen and M.A. Bakunin, began to become complicated. From July 1, 1862 to February 15, 1863, Herzen’s “Bell” published a series of articles “Ends and Beginnings” consisting of eight letters. Without naming the addressee of Turgenev’s letters, Herzen defended his understanding of the historical development of Russia, which, in his opinion, should move along the path of peasant socialism. Herzen contrasted peasant Russia with bourgeois Western Europe, whose revolutionary potential he considered already exhausted. Turgenev objected to Herzen in private letters, insisting on the commonality of historical development for different states and peoples.

At the end of 1862, Turgenev was involved in the trial of the 32 in the case of “persons accused of having relations with London propagandists.” After the authorities ordered an immediate appearance at the Senate, Turgenev decided to write a letter to the sovereign, trying to convince him of the loyalty of his convictions, “completely independent, but conscientious.” He asked for the interrogation points to be sent to him in Paris. In the end, he was forced to go to Russia in 1864 for Senate interrogation, where he managed to avert all suspicions from himself. The Senate found him not guilty. Turgenev’s appeal personally to Emperor Alexander II caused Herzen’s bilious reaction in The Bell. Much later, this moment in the relationship between the two writers was used by V.I. Lenin to illustrate the difference between the liberal vacillations of Turgenev and Herzen: “When the liberal Turgenev wrote a private letter to Alexander II with assurance of his loyal feelings and donated two gold pieces for the soldiers wounded during the pacification of the Polish uprising , “The Bell” wrote about “the gray-haired Magdalene (masculine), who wrote to the sovereign that she did not know sleep, tormented, that the sovereign did not know about the repentance that had befallen her.” And Turgenev immediately recognized himself.” But Turgenev’s hesitation between tsarism and revolutionary democracy manifested itself in another way.

I. S. Turgenev at the dacha of the Milyutin brothers in Baden-Baden, 1867

In 1863, Turgenev settled in Baden-Baden. The writer actively participated in the cultural life of Western Europe, establishing acquaintances with the greatest writers of Germany, France and England, promoting Russian literature abroad and introducing Russian readers to the best works of contemporary Western authors. Among his acquaintances or correspondents were Friedrich Bodenstedt, William Thackeray, Charles Dickens, Henry James, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Charles Saint-Beuve, Hippolyte Taine, Prosper Mérimée, Ernest Renan, Théophile Gautier, Edmond Goncourt, Emile Zola, Anatole France , Guy de Maupassant, Alphonse Daudet, Gustave Flaubert.

Despite living abroad, all of Turgenev’s thoughts were still connected with Russia. He wrote the novel “Smoke” (1867), which caused a lot of controversy in Russian society. According to the author, everyone scolded the novel: “both red and white, and above, and below, and from the side - especially from the side.”

In 1868, Turgenev became a permanent contributor to the liberal magazine “Bulletin of Europe” and broke ties with M. N. Katkov. The breakup did not go easily - the writer began to be persecuted in the Russky Vestnik and in the Moskovskie Vedomosti. The attacks especially intensified at the end of the 1870s, when, regarding the ovation that Turgenev received, the Katkovsky newspaper assured that the writer was “tumbling” in front of progressive youth.

1870s

Feast of the classics. A. Daudet, G. Flaubert, E. Zola, I. S. Turgenev

Since 1874, the famous bachelor “dinners of the five” - Flaubert, Edmond Goncourt, Daudet, Zola and Turgenev - were held in the Parisian restaurants of Riche or Pellet. The idea belonged to Flaubert, but Turgenev was given the main role in them. Luncheons took place once a month. They raised various topics - about the features of literature, about the structure of the French language, told stories and simply enjoyed delicious food. Dinners were held not only at Parisian restaurateurs, but also at the homes of the writers themselves.

I. S. Turgenev, 1871

I. S. Turgenev acted as a consultant and editor for foreign translators of Russian writers, wrote prefaces and notes to translations of Russian writers into European languages, as well as to Russian translations of works by famous European writers. He translated Western writers into Russian and Russian writers and poets into French and German. This is how translations of Flaubert’s works “Herodias” and “The Tale of St. Julian the Merciful" for Russian readers and Pushkin's works for French readers. For some time, Turgenev became the most famous and most read Russian author in Europe, where criticism ranked him among the first writers of the century. In 1878, at the international literary congress in Paris, the writer was elected vice-president. On June 18, 1879, he was awarded the title of honorary doctor of the University of Oxford, despite the fact that the university had never given such an honor to any fiction writer before him.

The fruit of the writer’s thoughts in the 1870s was the largest of his novels in terms of volume - “Nov” (1877), which was also criticized. For example, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin regarded this novel as a service to the autocracy.

Turgenev was friends with the Minister of Education A.V. Golovnin, with the Milyutin brothers (comrade of the Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of War), N.I. Turgenev, and was closely acquainted with the Minister of Finance M.H. Reitern. At the end of the 1870s, Turgenev became closer friends with the leaders of revolutionary emigration from Russia; his circle of acquaintances included P. L. Lavrov, P. A. Kropotkin, G. A. Lopatin and many others. Among other revolutionaries, he put German Lopatin above everyone else, admiring his intelligence, courage and moral strength.

In April 1878, Leo Tolstoy invited Turgenev to forget all the misunderstandings between them, to which Turgenev happily agreed. Friendly relations and correspondence were resumed. Turgenev explained the significance of modern Russian literature, including Tolstoy's work, to Western readers. In general, Ivan Turgenev played a big role in promoting Russian literature abroad.

However, Dostoevsky in his novel “Demons” portrayed Turgenev as the “great writer Karmazinov” - a loud, petty, well-worn and practically mediocre writer who considers himself a genius and is holed up abroad. Such an attitude towards Turgenev by the always needy Dostoevsky was caused, among other things, by Turgenev’s secure position in his noble life and the very high literary fees for those times: “To Turgenev for his “Noble Nest” (I finally read it. Extremely well) Katkov himself (from whom I I ask for 100 rubles per sheet) I gave 4000 rubles, that is, 400 rubles per sheet. My friend! I know very well that I write worse than Turgenev, but not too much worse, and finally, I hope to write not worse at all. Why am I, with my needs, taking only 100 rubles, and Turgenev, who has 2000 souls, 400?”

Turgenev, without hiding his hostility towards Dostoevsky, in a letter to M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in 1882 (after Dostoevsky’s death) also did not spare his opponent, calling him “the Russian Marquis de Sade.”

In 1880, the writer took part in Pushkin celebrations dedicated to the opening of the first monument to the poet in Moscow, organized by the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature.

Last years

Photo by I. S. Turgenev

Poems in prose. "Bulletin of Europe", 1882, December. From the editorial introduction it is clear that this is a magazine title, not an author's one.

The last years of Turgenev's life became for him the pinnacle of fame both in Russia, where the writer again became everyone's favorite, and in Europe, where the best critics of the time (I. Taine, E. Renan, G. Brandes, etc.) ranked him among the first writers of the century. His visits to Russia in 1878-1881 were real triumphs. All the more alarming in 1882 was the news of a severe exacerbation of his usual gouty pain. In the spring of 1882, the first signs of the disease were discovered, which soon turned out to be fatal for Turgenev. With temporary relief from the pain, he continued to work and a few months before his death he published the first part of “Poems in Prose” - a cycle of lyrical miniatures, which became his kind of farewell to life, homeland and art. The book opened with the prose poem “Village”, and ended with “Russian Language” - a lyrical hymn in which the author invested his faith in the great destiny of his country:

In days of doubt, in days of painful thoughts about the fate of my homeland, you alone are my support and support, oh great, powerful, truthful and free Russian language!.. Without you, how can I not fall into despair at the sight of everything that is happening at home. But one cannot believe that such a language was not given to a great people!

Parisian doctors Charcot and Jacquot diagnosed the writer with angina pectoris; Soon she was joined by intercostal neuralgia. The last time Turgenev was in Spassky-Lutovinovo was in the summer of 1881. The sick writer spent the winters in Paris, and in the summer he was transported to Bougival to the Viardot estate.

By January 1883 the pain had become so severe that he could not sleep without morphine. He had surgery to remove a neuroma in the lower abdomen, but the surgery helped little because it did not relieve the pain in the thoracic region of the spine. The disease progressed; in March and April the writer suffered so much that those around him began to notice momentary cloudings of reason, caused in part by taking morphine. The writer was fully aware of his imminent death and came to terms with the consequences of the disease, which deprived him of the ability to walk or simply stand.

Death and funeral

The confrontation between " an unimaginably painful illness and an unimaginably strong body"(P.V. Annenkov) ended on August 22 (September 3), 1883 in Bougival near Paris. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev died from myxosarcoma (a malignant tumor of the bones of the spine), at the age of 65. Doctor S.P. Botkin testified that the true cause of death was clarified only after an autopsy, during which his brain was also weighed by physiologists. As it turned out, among those whose brains were weighed, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev had the largest brain (2012 grams, which is almost 600 grams more than the average weight).

Turgenev's death was a great shock for his admirers, resulting in a very impressive funeral. The funeral was preceded by mourning celebrations in Paris, in which over four hundred people took part. Among them were at least a hundred Frenchmen: Edmond Abu, Jules Simon, Emile Ogier, Emile Zola, Alphonse Daudet, Juliette Adam, artist Alfred Dieudonnet (Russian) French, composer Jules Massenet. Ernest Renan addressed the mourners with a heartfelt speech. In accordance with the will of the deceased, on September 27, his body was brought to St. Petersburg.

Even from the border station of Verzhbolovo, memorial services were held at stops. On the platform of the St. Petersburg Warsaw Station there was a solemn meeting between the coffin and the body of the writer. Senator A.F. Koni recalled the funeral at the Volkovskoye cemetery:

The reception of the coffin in St. Petersburg and its passage to the Volkovo cemetery presented unusual spectacles in their beauty, majestic character and complete, voluntary and unanimous observance of order. A continuous chain of 176 deputations from literature, from newspapers and magazines, scientists, educational and educational institutions, from zemstvos, Siberians, Poles and Bulgarians occupied a space of several miles, attracting the sympathetic and often moved attention of the huge public, crowding the sidewalks - carried by deputations graceful, magnificent wreaths and banners with meaningful inscriptions. So, there was a wreath “To the Author of “Mumu”” from the Animal Welfare Society... a wreath with the inscription “Love is stronger than death” from women’s pedagogical courses...

- A.F. Koni, “Turgenev’s Funeral,” Collected Works in eight volumes. T. 6. M., Legal literature, 1968. Pp. 385-386.

There were some misunderstandings. The day after the funeral of Turgenev’s body in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral on Daru Street in Paris, on September 19, the famous emigrant populist P. L. Lavrov published in the Paris newspaper “Justice” (Russian) French, edited by the future socialist Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau a letter in which he reported that I. S. Turgenev, on his own initiative, transferred 500 francs to Lavrov annually for three years to facilitate the publication of the revolutionary emigrant newspaper “Forward”.

Russian liberals were outraged by this news, considering it a provocation. The conservative press represented by M. N. Katkov, on the contrary, took advantage of Lavrov’s message to posthumously persecute Turgenev in the Russky Vestnik and Moskovskiye Vedomosti in order to prevent the honoring in Russia of the deceased writer, whose body “without any publicity, with special caution” should was to arrive in the capital from Paris for burial. The trace of Turgenev's ashes greatly worried the Minister of Internal Affairs D. A. Tolstoy, who feared spontaneous rallies. According to the editor of Vestnik Evropy, M. M. Stasyulevich, who accompanied Turgenev’s body, the precautions taken by officials were as inappropriate as if he were accompanying the Nightingale the Robber, and not the body of the great writer.

Personal life

The first romantic interest of young Turgenev was falling in love with the daughter of Princess Shakhovskaya - Ekaterina (1815-1836), a young poetess. The estates of their parents in the Moscow region bordered, they often exchanged visits. He was 15, she was 19. In letters to her son, Varvara Turgenev called Ekaterina Shakhovskaya a “poet” and a “villain”, since Sergei Nikolaevich himself, Ivan Turgenev’s father, could not resist the charms of the young princess, to whom the girl reciprocated, which broke the heart of the future writer . The episode much later, in 1860, was reflected in the story “First Love,” in which the writer endowed the heroine of the story, Zinaida Zasekina, with some of the traits of Katya Shakhovskaya.

In 1841, during his return to Lutovinovo, Ivan became interested in the seamstress Dunyasha (Avdotya Ermolaevna Ivanova). A romance began between the young couple, which ended in the girl’s pregnancy. Ivan Sergeevich immediately expressed a desire to marry her. However, his mother made a serious scandal about this, after which he went to St. Petersburg. Turgenev's mother, having learned about Avdotya's pregnancy, hastily sent her to Moscow to her parents, where Pelageya was born on April 26, 1842. Dunyasha was married off, leaving her daughter in an ambiguous position. Turgenev officially recognized the child only in 1857.

Tatiana Bakunina. Portrait by Evdokia Bakunina, mid-19th century.

Soon after the episode with Avdotya Ivanova, Turgenev met Tatyana Bakunina (1815-1871), the sister of the future emigrant revolutionary M.A. Bakunin. Returning to Moscow after his stay in Spassky, he stopped at the Bakunin estate Premukhino. The winter of 1841-1842 was spent in close communication with the circle of Bakunin brothers and sisters. All of Turgenev's friends - N.V. Stankevich, V.G. Belinsky and V.P. Botkin - were in love with Mikhail Bakunin's sisters, Lyubov, Varvara and Alexandra.

Tatyana was three years older than Ivan. Like all young Bakunins, she was passionate about German philosophy and perceived her relationships with others through the prism of Fichte’s idealistic concept. She wrote letters to Turgenev in German, full of lengthy reasoning and self-analysis, despite the fact that the young people lived in the same house, and she also expected from Turgenev an analysis of the motives of her own actions and reciprocal feelings. “The ‘philosophical’ novel,” as G. A. Byaly noted, “in the vicissitudes of which the entire younger generation of Premukha’s nest took an active part, lasted several months.” Tatyana was truly in love. Ivan Sergeevich did not remain completely indifferent to the love he awakened. He wrote several poems (the poem “Parasha” was also inspired by communication with Bakunina) and a story dedicated to this sublimely ideal, mostly literary and epistolary hobby. But he could not respond with serious feelings.

Among the writer’s other fleeting hobbies, there were two more that played a certain role in his work. In the 1850s, a fleeting romance broke out with a distant cousin, eighteen-year-old Olga Alexandrovna Turgeneva. The love was mutual, and the writer was thinking about marriage in 1854, the prospect of which at the same time frightened him. Olga later served as the prototype for the image of Tatyana in the novel “Smoke”. Turgenev was also indecisive with Maria Nikolaevna Tolstoy. Ivan Sergeevich wrote about Leo Tolstoy’s sister to P.V. Annenkov: “His sister is one of the most attractive creatures I have ever met. Sweet, smart, simple - I couldn’t take my eyes off her. In my old age (I turned 36 on the fourth day) - I almost fell in love.” For the sake of Turgenev, twenty-four-year-old M.N. Tolstaya had already left her husband; she took the writer’s attention to herself as true love. But Turgenev limited himself to a platonic hobby, and Maria Nikolaevna served him as a prototype for Verochka from the story “Faust”.

In the fall of 1843, Turgenev first saw Pauline Viardot on the stage of the opera house, when the great singer came on tour to St. Petersburg. Turgenev was 25 years old, Viardot was 22 years old. Then, while hunting, he met Polina’s husband, the director of the Italian Theater in Paris, a famous critic and art critic, Louis Viardot, and on November 1, 1843, he was introduced to Polina herself. Among the mass of fans, she did not particularly single out Turgenev, who was better known as an avid hunter rather than a writer. And when her tour ended, Turgenev, together with the Viardot family, left for Paris against the will of his mother, still unknown to Europe and without money. And this despite the fact that everyone considered him a rich man. But this time his extremely cramped financial situation was explained precisely by his disagreement with his mother, one of the richest women in Russia and the owner of a huge agricultural and industrial empire.

For affection for " damn gypsy“His mother didn’t give him money for three years. During these years, his lifestyle bore little resemblance to the stereotype of the life of a “rich Russian” that had developed about him. In November 1845, he returned to Russia, and in January 1847, having learned about Viardot’s tour in Germany, he left the country again: he went to Berlin, then to London, Paris, a tour of France and again to St. Petersburg. Without an official marriage, Turgenev lived in the Viardot family " on the edge of someone else's nest", as he himself said. Polina Viardot raised Turgenev's illegitimate daughter. In the early 1860s, the Viardot family settled in Baden-Baden, and with them Turgenev (“Villa Tourgueneff”). Thanks to the Viardot family and Ivan Turgenev, their villa became an interesting musical and artistic center. The war of 1870 forced the Viardot family to leave Germany and move to Paris, where the writer also moved.

The true nature of the relationship between Pauline Viardot and Turgenev is still a matter of debate. There is an opinion that after Louis Viardot was paralyzed as a result of a stroke, Polina and Turgenev actually entered into a marital relationship. Louis Viardot was twenty years older than Polina; he died the same year as I. S. Turgenev.

The writer's last love was the actress of the Alexandrinsky Theater Maria Savina. Their meeting took place in 1879, when the young actress was 25 years old and Turgenev was 61 years old. The actress at that time played the role of Verochka in Turgenev’s play “A Month in the Village.” The role was played so vividly that the writer himself was amazed. After this performance, he went to the actress backstage with a large bouquet of roses and exclaimed: “ Did I really write this Verochka?!“Ivan Turgenev fell in love with her, which he openly admitted. The rarity of their meetings was compensated by regular correspondence, which lasted four years. Despite Turgenev's sincere relationship, for Maria he was more of a good friend. She was planning to marry someone else, but the marriage never took place. Savina’s marriage to Turgenev was also not destined to come true - the writer died in the circle of the Viardot family.

"Turgenev girls"

Turgenev's personal life was not entirely successful. Having lived for 38 years in close contact with the Viardot family, the writer felt deeply lonely. Under these conditions, Turgenev’s depiction of love was formed, but love that was not entirely characteristic of his melancholy creative manner. There is almost no happy ending in his works, and the last chord is often sad. But nevertheless, almost none of the Russian writers paid so much attention to the depiction of love; no one idealized a woman to such an extent as Ivan Turgenev.

The characters of the female characters in his works of the 1850s - 1880s - the images of integral, pure, selfless, morally strong heroines in total formed the literary phenomenon " Turgenev's girl" - a typical heroine of his works. Such are Liza in the story “The Diary of an Extra Person”, Natalya Lasunskaya in the novel “Rudin”, Asya in the story of the same name, Vera in the story “Faust”, Elizaveta Kalitina in the novel “The Noble Nest”, Elena Stakhova in the novel “On the Eve”, Marianna Sinetskaya in novel "Nov" and others.

L.N. Tolstoy, noting the merits of the writer, said that Turgenev wrote amazing portraits of women, and that Tolstoy himself later observed Turgenev’s women in life.

Offspring

Turgeneva Pelageya (Polina, Polynet) Ivanovna. Photo by E. Karzh, 1870s

Turgenev never started his own family. The writer's daughter from the seamstress Avdotya Ermolaevna Ivanova Pelageya Ivanovna Turgeneva, married to Brewer (1842-1919), from the age of eight was raised in the family of Pauline Viardot in France, where Turgenev changed her name from Pelageya to Polina (Polinet, Paulinette), which seemed to him more euphonious. Ivan Sergeevich arrived in France only six years later, when his daughter was already fourteen. Polinette almost forgot the Russian language and spoke exclusively French, which touched her father. At the same time, he was upset that the girl had a difficult relationship with Viardot herself. The girl was hostile to her father's beloved, and soon this led to the fact that the girl was sent to a private boarding school. When Turgenev next came to France, he took his daughter from the boarding school, and they moved in together, and a governess from England, Innis, was invited for Polynet.

At the age of seventeen, Polynette met the young entrepreneur Gaston Brewer (1835-1885), who made a pleasant impression on Ivan Turgenev, and he agreed to his daughter’s marriage. As a dowry, my father gave a considerable amount for those times - 150 thousand francs. The girl married Brewer, who soon went bankrupt, after which Polynette, with the assistance of her father, hid from her husband in Switzerland. Since Turgenev's heir was Polina Viardot, after his death his daughter found herself in a difficult financial situation. She died in 1919 at the age of 76 from cancer. Polynet's children - Georges-Albert and Jeanne - had no descendants. Georges-Albert died in 1924. Zhanna Brewer-Turgeneva never married; She lived by giving private lessons for a living, as she was fluent in five languages. She even tried herself in poetry, writing poems in French. She died in 1952 at the age of 80, and with her the family branch of the Turgenevs along the line of Ivan Sergeevich ended.

Passion for hunting

I. S. Turgenev was at one time one of the most famous hunters in Russia. The love of hunting was instilled in the future writer by his uncle Nikolai Turgenev, a recognized expert in horses and hunting dogs in the area, who raised the boy during his summer holidays in Spassky. He also taught hunting to the future writer A.I. Kupfershmidt, whom Turgenev considered his first teacher. Thanks to him, Turgenev could already call himself a gun hunter in his youth. Even Ivan’s mother, who had previously looked at hunters as slackers, became imbued with her son’s passion. Over the years, the hobby grew into a passion. It happened that he would not let go of his gun for whole seasons, walking thousands of miles across many provinces of central Russia. Turgenev said that hunting is generally characteristic of Russian people, and that Russian people have loved hunting since time immemorial.

In 1837, Turgenev met the peasant hunter Afanasy Alifanov, who later became his frequent hunting companion. The writer bought it for a thousand rubles; he settled in the forest, five miles from Spassky. Afanasy was an excellent storyteller, and Turgenev often came to sit with him over a cup of tea and listen to hunting stories. The story “About Nightingales” (1854) was recorded by the writer from the words of Alifanov. It was Afanasy who became the prototype of Ermolai from “Notes of a Hunter”. He was also known for his talent as a hunter among the writer’s friends - A. A. Fet, I. P. Borisov. When Afanasy died in 1872, Turgenev was very sorry for his old hunting companion and asked his manager to provide possible assistance to his daughter Anna.

In 1839, the writer’s mother, describing the tragic consequences of the fire that occurred in Spassky, did not forget to say: “ your gun is intact, but the dog has gone crazy" The fire that occurred accelerated Ivan Turgenev’s arrival in Spasskoye. In the summer of 1839, he first went hunting in the Teleginsky swamps (on the border of Bolkhovsky and Oryol districts), visited the Lebedyansk fair, which was reflected in the story “Swan” (1847). Varvara Petrovna purchased five packs of greyhounds, nine pairs of hounds and horses with saddles especially for him.

In the summer of 1843, Ivan Sergeevich lived at his dacha in Pavlovsk and also hunted a lot. That year he met Polina Viardot. The writer was introduced to her with the words: “ This is a young Russian landowner. A good hunter and a bad poet" The actress's husband Louis was, like Turgenev, a passionate hunter. Ivan Sergeevich invited him more than once to go hunting in the vicinity of St. Petersburg. They repeatedly went hunting with friends to the Novgorod province and Finland. And Polina Viardot gave Turgenev a beautiful and expensive yagdtash.

« I. S. Turgenev on the hunt", (1879). N. D. Dmitriev-Orenburgsky

At the end of the 1840s, the writer lived abroad and worked on “Notes of a Hunter.” The writer spent 1852-1853 in Spassky under police supervision. But this exile did not depress him, since a hunt awaited him in the village again, and it was quite successful. And the next year he went on hunting expeditions 150 miles from Spassky, where, together with I.F. Yurasov, he hunted on the banks of the Desna. This expedition served as material for Turgenev to work on the story “A Trip to Polesie” (1857).

In August 1854, Turgenev, together with N.A. Nekrasov, came to hunt at the estate of titular adviser I.I. Maslov Osmino, after which both continued to hunt in Spassky. In the mid-1850s, Turgenev met the family of Count Tolstoy. L.N. Tolstoy's elder brother, Nikolai, also turned out to be an avid hunter and, together with Turgenev, made several hunting trips around the outskirts of Spassky and Nikolsko-Vyazemsky. Sometimes they were accompanied by M.N. Tolstoy’s husband, Valerian Petrovich; some traits of his character were reflected in the image of Priimkov in the story “Faust” (1855). In the summer of 1855, Turgenev did not hunt due to a cholera epidemic, but in subsequent seasons he tried to make up for lost time. Together with N.N. Tolstoy, the writer visited Pirogovo, the estate of S.N. Tolstoy, who preferred to hunt with greyhounds and had beautiful horses and dogs. Turgenev, on the other hand, preferred to hunt with a gun and a gun dog, and mainly for feathered game.

Turgenev kept a kennel of seventy hounds and sixty greyhounds. Together with N.N. Tolstoy, A.A. Fet and A.T. Alifanov, he made a number of hunting expeditions in the central Russian provinces. In 1860-1870, Turgenev mainly lived abroad. He also tried to recreate the rituals and atmosphere of Russian hunting abroad, but from all this only a distant similarity was obtained, even when he, together with Louis Viardot, managed to rent quite decent hunting grounds. In the spring of 1880, having visited Spasskoye, Turgenev made a special trip to Yasnaya Polyana with the goal of persuading L.N. Tolstoy to take part in the Pushkin celebrations. Tolstoy refused the invitation because he considered gala dinners and liberal toasts inappropriate in the face of the starving Russian peasantry. Nevertheless, Turgenev fulfilled his old dream - he hunted with Leo Tolstoy. A whole hunting circle even formed around Turgenev - N. A. Nekrasov, A. A. Fet, A. N. Ostrovsky, N. N. and L. N. Tolstoy, artist P. P. Sokolov (illustrator of “Notes of a Hunter”) . In addition, he had the opportunity to hunt with the German writer Karl Müller, as well as with representatives of the reigning houses of Russia and Germany - Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and the Prince of Hesse.

Ivan Turgenev, with a gun on his back, walked into the Oryol, Tula, Tambov, Kursk, and Kaluga provinces. He was well acquainted with the best hunting grounds of England, France, and Germany. He wrote three specialized works devoted to hunting: “On the notes of the gun hunter of the Orenburg province S. T. Aksakov,” “Notes of the gun hunter of the Orenburg province” and “Fifty shortcomings of a gun hunter or fifty shortcomings of a pointing dog.”

Towards the end of his life, the decrepit Ivan Turgenev repented on his deathbed of killing woodcocks, black grouse, great snipes, ducks, partridges and other wild birds while hunting.

Characteristics and writer's life

Address to Turgenev from the editors of Sovremennik, watercolor by D. V. Grigorovich, 1857

Biographers of Turgenev noted the unique features of his life as a writer. From his youth, he combined intelligence, education, and artistic talent with passivity, a tendency toward introspection, and indecision. All together, in a bizarre way, it was combined with the habits of the little baron, who had been dependent for a long time on his domineering, despotic mother. Turgenev recalled that at the University of Berlin, while studying Hegel, he could give up his studies when he needed to train his dog or set it on rats. T. N. Granovsky, who came to his apartment, found the philosophy student playing card soldiers with a serf servant (Porfiry Kudryashov). The childishness smoothed out over the years, but internal duality and immaturity of views made themselves felt for a long time: according to A. Ya. Panaeva, young Ivan wanted to be accepted both in literary society and in secular drawing rooms, while in secular society Turgenev was ashamed to admit about his literary earnings, which spoke of his false and frivolous attitude towards literature and the title of writer at that time.

The writer’s cowardice in his youth is evidenced by an episode in 1838 in Germany, when during a trip there was a fire on a ship, and the passengers miraculously managed to escape. Turgenev, who feared for his life, asked one of the sailors to save him and promised him a reward from his rich mother if he managed to fulfill his request. Other passengers testified that the young man plaintively exclaimed: “ To die so young!”, while pushing women and children away from the rescue boats. Fortunately, the shore was not far. Once on the shore, the young man was ashamed of his cowardice. Rumors of his cowardice permeated society and became the subject of ridicule. The event played a certain negative role in the subsequent life of the author and was described by Turgenev himself in the short story “Fire at Sea.”

Researchers note another character trait of Turgenev, which brought him and those around him a lot of trouble - his optionality, “all-Russian negligence” or “Oblomovism,” as E. A. Solovyov writes. Ivan Sergeevich could invite guests to his place and soon forget about it, going somewhere else on his own business; he could have promised a story to N.A. Nekrasov for the next issue of Sovremennik, or even taken an advance from A.A. Kraevsky and not delivered the promised manuscript in a timely manner. Ivan Sergeevich himself later warned the younger generation against such annoying little things. A victim of this optionality once became the Polish-Russian revolutionary Arthur Benny, who was slanderously accused in Russia of being an agent of Section III. This accusation could only be dispelled by A. I. Herzen, to whom Benny wrote a letter and asked him to convey it with the opportunity to I. S. Turgenev in London. Turgenev forgot about the letter, which had lain unsent for over two months. During this time, rumors of Benny's betrayal reached catastrophic proportions. The letter, which reached Herzen very late, could not change anything in Benny’s reputation.

The reverse side of these flaws was spiritual gentleness, breadth of nature, a certain generosity, gentleness, but his kindness had its limits. When, during his last visit to Spasskoye, he saw that the mother, who did not know how to please her beloved son, lined up all the serfs along the alley to greet the barchuk “ loud and joyful", Ivan became angry with his mother, immediately turned around and left back for St. Petersburg. They did not see each other again until her death, and even lack of money could not shake his decision. Among Turgenev's character traits, Ludwig Pietsch singled out his modesty. Abroad, where his work was still poorly known, Turgenev never boasted to those around him that in Russia he was already considered a famous writer. Having become the independent owner of his mother's inheritance, Turgenev did not show any concern for his grains and harvests. Unlike Leo Tolstoy, he did not have any mastery in him.

He calls himself " the most careless of Russian landowners" The writer did not delve into the management of his estate, entrusting it either to his uncle, or to the poet N.S. Tyutchev, or even to random people. Turgenev was very wealthy, he had no less than 20 thousand rubles a year in income from the land, but at the same time he always needed money, spending it very unscrupulously. The habits of the broad Russian gentleman made themselves felt. Turgenev's literary fees were also very significant. He was one of the highest paid writers in Russia. Each edition of “Notes of a Hunter” provided him with 2,500 rubles of net income. The right to publish his works cost 20-25 thousand rubles.

The meaning and evaluation of creativity

Extra people in the image of Turgenev

“The Noble Nest” on the stage of the Maly Theater, Lavretsky - A. I. Sumbatov-Yuzhin, Lisa - Elena Leshkovskaya (1895)

Despite the fact that the tradition of depicting “extra people” arose before Turgenev (Chatsky A. S. Griboedova, Evgeny Onegin A. S. Pushkin, Pechorin M. Yu. Lermontova, Beltov A. I. Herzen, Aduev Jr. in “Ordinary History "I. A. Goncharova), Turgenev has priority in defining this type of literary characters. The name “The Extra Man” was established after the publication of Turgenev’s story “The Diary of an Extra Man” in 1850. “Superfluous people” were, as a rule, distinguished by the general features of intellectual superiority over others and at the same time passivity, mental discord, skepticism towards the realities of the outside world, and a discrepancy between word and deed. Turgenev created a whole gallery of similar images: Chulkaturin (“Diary of an Extra Man,” 1850), Rudin (“Rudin,” 1856), Lavretsky (“Nest of the Nobles,” 1859), Nezhdanov (“Nov,” 1877). Turgenev’s novels and stories “Asya”, “Yakov Pasynkov”, “Correspondence” and others are also devoted to the problem of the “superfluous person”.

The main character of “The Diary of an Extra Man” is marked by the desire to analyze all his emotions, to record the slightest shades of the state of his own soul. Like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the hero notices the unnaturalness and tension of his thoughts, the lack of will: “ I analyzed myself to the last thread, compared myself with others, recalled the slightest glances, smiles, words of people... Entire days passed in this painful, fruitless work" Self-analysis, which corrodes the soul, gives the hero unnatural pleasure: “ Only after my expulsion from the Ozhogins’ house did I painfully learn how much pleasure a person can derive from the contemplation of his own misfortune" The failure of apathetic and reflective characters was further emphasized by the images of Turgenev’s integral and strong heroines.

The result of Turgenev’s thoughts about heroes of the Rudin and Chulkaturin type was the article “Hamlet and Don Quixote” (1859). The least “hamletic” of all Turgenev’s “superfluous people” is the hero of “The Noble Nest” Lavretsky. One of its main characters, Alexey Dmitrievich Nezhdanov, is called the “Russian Hamlet” in the novel “Nov”.

Simultaneously with Turgenev, the phenomenon of the “superfluous man” continued to be developed by I. A. Goncharov in the novel “Oblomov” (1859), N. A. Nekrasov - Agarin (“Sasha”, 1856), A. F. Pisemsky and many others. But, unlike Goncharov’s character, Turgenev’s heroes were subject to greater typification. According to the Soviet literary critic A. Lavretsky (I.M. Frenkel), “If we had all the sources for studying the 40s. If there was only one “Rudin” or one “Noble Nest” left, then it would still be possible to establish the character of the era in its specific features. According to Oblomov, we are not able to do this.”

Later, the tradition of depicting Turgenev’s “superfluous people” was ironically played up by A.P. Chekhov. The character of his story "Duel" Laevsky is a reduced and parodic version of Turgenev's superfluous man. He tells his friend von Koren: “ I'm a loser, an extra person" Von Koren agrees that Laevsky is “ chip from Rudin" At the same time, he speaks of Laevsky’s claim to be “an extra person” in a mocking tone: “ Understand this, they say, that it is not his fault that government packages lie unopened for weeks and that he himself drinks and gets others drunk, but Onegin, Pechorin and Turgenev are to blame for this, who invented a loser and an extra person" Later critics brought Rudin's character closer to the character of Turgenev himself.

On the stage

Set design sketch for “A Month in the Country”, M. V. Dobuzhinsky, 1909

By the mid-1850s, Turgenev became disillusioned with his calling as a playwright. Critics declared his plays unstageable. The author seemed to agree with the opinion of the critics and stopped writing for the Russian stage, but in 1868-1869 he wrote four French operetta librettos for Pauline Viardot, intended for production at the Baden-Baden theater. L.P. Grossman noted the validity of many critics’ reproaches against Turgenev’s plays for the lack of movement in them and the predominance of the conversational element. Nevertheless, he pointed out the paradoxical vitality of Turgenev's productions on stage. Ivan Sergeevich's plays have not left the repertoire of European and Russian theaters for over one hundred and sixty years. Famous Russian performers played in them: P. A. Karatygin, V. V. Samoilov, V. V. Samoilova (Samoilova 2nd), A. E. Martynov, V. I. Zhivokini, M. P. Sadovsky, S. V. Shumsky, V. N. Davydov, K. A. Varlamov, M. G. Savina, G. N. Fedotova, V. F. Komissarzhevskaya, K. S. Stanislavsky, V. I. Kachalov, M. N. Ermolova and others.

Turgenev the playwright was widely recognized in Europe. His plays were successful on the stages of the Antoine Theater in Paris, the Vienna Burgtheater, the Munich Chamber Theater, Berlin, Königsberg and other German theaters. Turgenev's dramaturgy was in the selected repertoire of outstanding Italian tragedians: Ermete Novelli, Tommaso Salvini, Ernesto Rossi, Ermete Zacconi, Austrian, German and French actors Adolf von Sonnenthal, Andre Antoine, Charlotte Voltaire and Franziska Elmenreich.

Of all his plays, the greatest success was A Month in the Country. The performance debuted in 1872. At the beginning of the 20th century, the play was staged at the Moscow Art Theater by K. S. Stanislavsky and I. M. Moskvin. The set designer for the production and the author of the sketches for the costumes of the characters was the world art artist M. V. Dobuzhinsky. This play has not left the stage of Russian theaters to this day. Even during the author’s lifetime, theaters began to stage his novels and stories with varying degrees of success: “The Noble Nest”, “King Lear of the Steppes”, “Spring Waters”. This tradition is continued by modern theaters.

In the assessments of contemporaries of the 19th century

Caricature by A. M. Volkov on Turgenev’s novel “Smoke.”
"Spark". 1867. No. 14.
- What an unpleasant smell - fi!
- The smoke of dying fame, the smoke of smoldering talent...
- Shh, gentlemen! And Turgenev’s smoke is sweet and pleasant to us!

Contemporaries gave Turgenev's work a very high rating. Critics V. G. Belinsky, N. A. Dobrolyubov, D. I. Pisarev, A. V. Druzhinin, P. V. Annenkov, Apollon Grigoriev, V. P. Botkin, N. N. made a critical analysis of his works. Strakhov, V. P. Burenin, K. S. Aksakov, I. S. Aksakov, N. K. Mikhailovsky, K. N. Leontyev, A. S. Suvorin, P. L. Lavrov, S. S. Dudyshkin, P. N. Tkachev, N. I. Solovyov, M. A. Antonovich, M. N. Longinov, M. F. De-Pule, N. V. Shelgunov, N. G. Chernyshevsky and many others.

Thus, V. G. Belinsky noted the writer’s extraordinary skill in depicting Russian nature. According to N.V. Gogol, Turgenev had the most talent in Russian literature of that time. N.A. Dobrolyubov wrote that as soon as Turgenev touched upon any issue or new aspect of social relations in his story, these problems arose in the consciousness of an educated society, appearing before everyone’s eyes. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin stated that Turgenev’s literary activity was of equal importance to society as the activities of Nekrasov, Belinsky and Dobrolyubov. According to the Russian literary critic of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, S. A. Vengerov, the writer managed to write so realistically that it was difficult to grasp the line between literary fiction and real life. His novels were not only read, but his heroes were imitated in life. In each of his major works there is a character in whose mouth the subtle and apt wit of the writer himself is put.

Turgenev was also well known in contemporary Western Europe. His works were translated into German back in the 1850s, and in the 1870s-1880s he became the most beloved and most read Russian writer in Germany, and German critics rated him as one of the most significant modern short story writers. Turgenev's first translators were August Wiedert, August Boltz and Paul Fuchs. The translator of many of Turgenev’s works into German, the German writer F. Bodenstedt, in the introduction to “Russian Fragments” (1861), argued that Turgenev’s works are equal to the works of the best modern short story writers in England, Germany and France. Chancellor of the German Empire Clovis Hohenlohe (1894-1900), who called Ivan Turgenev the best candidate for the post of Prime Minister of Russia, spoke of the writer as follows: “ Today I spoke with the smartest man in Russia».

Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter” were popular in France. Guy de Maupassant called the writer " great man" And " a brilliant novelist", and George Sand wrote to Turgenev: " Teacher! We all must go through your school" His work was also well known in English literary circles - “Notes of a Hunter”, “The Noble Nest”, “On the Eve” and “New” were translated in England. Western readers were captivated by the moral purity in the depiction of love, the image of a Russian woman (Elena Stakhova); I was struck by the figure of the militant democrat Bazarov. The writer managed to show European society the true Russia, he introduced foreign readers to the Russian peasant, to the Russian commoners and revolutionaries, to the Russian intelligentsia and revealed the image of the Russian woman. Thanks to Turgenev’s work, foreign readers absorbed the great traditions of the Russian realistic school.

Leo Tolstoy gave the following characterization to the writer in a letter to A. N. Pypin (January 1884): “Turgenev is a wonderful person (not very deep, very weak, but a kind, good person), who always says exactly what he thinks and feels "

In the encyclopedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron

Novel "Fathers and Sons". Published 1880, Leipzig, Germany

According to the Brockhaus and Efron encyclopedia, “Notes of a Hunter,” in addition to the usual readership success, played a certain historical role. The book made a strong impression even on the heir to the throne, Alexander II, who a few years later carried out a number of reforms to abolish serfdom in Russia. Many representatives of the ruling classes were also impressed by the Notes. The book carried a social protest, denouncing serfdom, but serfdom itself was directly touched upon in “Notes of a Hunter” with restraint and caution. The content of the book was not fictitious; it convinced readers that people should not be deprived of the most basic human rights. But, in addition to protest, the stories also had artistic value, carrying a soft and poetic flavor. According to the literary critic S. A. Vengerov, the landscape painting of “Notes of a Hunter” became one of the best in Russian literature of that time. All the best qualities of Turgenev’s talent were vividly expressed in his essays. " The great, powerful, truthful and free Russian language“, to which the last of his “Poems in Prose” (1878-1882) is dedicated, received its most noble and elegant expression in “Notes”.

In the novel “Rudin” the author managed to successfully portray the generation of the 1840s. To some extent, Rudin himself is the image of the famous Hegelian agitator M.A. Bakunin, whom Belinsky spoke of as a person “ with blush on your cheeks and no blood in your heart" Rudin appeared in an era when society dreamed of “business.” The author's version of the novel was not passed by the censors due to the episode of Rudin's death at the June barricades, and therefore was understood by critics in a very one-sided way. According to the author, Rudin was a richly gifted man with noble intentions, but at the same time he was completely lost in the face of reality; he knew how to passionately appeal and captivate others, but at the same time he himself was completely devoid of passion and temperament. The hero of the novel has become a household name for those people whose words do not agree with deeds. The writer generally did not particularly spare his favorite heroes, even the best representatives of the Russian noble class of the mid-19th century. He often emphasized passivity and lethargy in their characters, as well as traits of moral helplessness. This demonstrated the realism of the writer, who depicted life as it is.

But if in “Rudin” Turgenev spoke only against the idle chattering people of the generation of the forties, then in “The Noble Nest” his criticism fell against his entire generation; without the slightest bitterness he gave preference to young forces. In the person of the heroine of this novel, a simple Russian girl, Lisa, a collective image of many women of that time is shown, when the meaning of a woman’s whole life was reduced to love, having failed in which, a woman was deprived of any purpose of existence. Turgenev foresaw the emergence of a new type of Russian woman, which he placed at the center of his next novel. Russian society of that time lived on the eve of radical social and state changes. And the heroine of Turgenev’s novel “On the Eve”, Elena became the personification of the vague desire for something good and new, characteristic of the first years of the reform era, without a clear idea of ​​​​this new and good. It was no coincidence that the novel was called “On the Eve” - in it Shubin ends his elegy with the question: “ When will our time come? When will we have people?"To which his interlocutor expresses hope for the best: " Give it time,” answered Uvar Ivanovich, “they will" On the pages of Sovremennik, the novel received an enthusiastic assessment in Dobrolyubov’s article “When will the real day come.”

In the next novel, “Fathers and Sons,” one of the most characteristic features of Russian literature of that time was most fully expressed - the closest connection of literature with the real currents of public sentiment. Turgenev managed better than other writers to capture the moment of unanimity of public consciousness, which in the second half of the 1850s buried the old Nicholas era with its lifeless reactionary isolation, and the turning point of the era: the subsequent confusion of innovators who singled out from their midst moderate representatives of the older generation with their vague hopes for a better future - for the “fathers”, and for the younger generation, thirsty for fundamental changes in the social order - the “children”. The magazine “Russian Word”, represented by D.I. Pisarev, even recognized the hero of the novel, the radical Bazarov, as its ideal. At the same time, if you look at the image of Bazarov from a historical point of view, as a type reflecting the mood of the sixties of the 19th century, then it is rather not fully revealed, since socio-political radicalism, quite strong at that time, is almost absent from the novel. was affected.

While living abroad, in Paris, the writer became close to many emigrants and foreign youth. He again had a desire to write about the topic of the day - about the revolutionary “going to the people”, as a result of which his largest novel, Nov, appeared. But, despite his efforts, Turgenev failed to grasp the most characteristic features of the Russian revolutionary movement. His mistake was that he made the center of the novel one of the weak-willed people typical of his works, who could be characteristic of the generation of the 1840s, but not of the 1870s. The novel did not receive high praise from critics. Of the writer’s later works, the “Song of Triumphant Love” and “Prose Poems” attracted the most attention.

XIX-XX century

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, critics and literary scholars S. A. Vengerov, Yu. I. Aikhenvald, D. S. Merezhkovsky, D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, A. I. Nezelenov, turned to the work of I. S. Turgenev, Yu. N. Govorukha-Otrok, V. V. Rozanov, A. E. Gruzinsky, E. A. Solovyov-Andreevich, L. A. Tikhomirov, V. E. Cheshikhin-Vetrinsky, A. F. Koni, A. G. Gornfeld, F. D. Batyushkov, V. V. Stasov, G. V. Plekhanov, K. D. Balmont, P. P. Pertsov, M. O. Gershenzon, P. A. Kropotkin, R. V. Ivanov-Razumnik and others.

According to the literary scholar and theater critic Yu. I. Aikhenvald, who gave his assessment of the writer at the beginning of the century, Turgenev was not a deep writer, he wrote superficially and in light tones. According to the critic, the writer took life lightly. Knowing all the passions, possibilities and depths of human consciousness, the writer, however, did not have true seriousness: “ A tourist of life, he visits everything, looks everywhere, does not stop anywhere for long, and at the end of his road he laments that the journey is over, that there is nowhere else to go. Rich, meaningful, varied, it does not, however, have pathos or true seriousness. His softness is his weakness. He showed reality, but first took out its tragic core" According to Aikhenvald, Turgenev is easy to read, easy to live with, but he does not want to worry himself and does not want his readers to worry. The critic also reproached the writer for the monotony in the use of artistic techniques. But at the same time he called Turgenev “ patriot of Russian nature"for his celebrated landscapes of his native land.

The author of an article about I. S. Turgenev in the six-volume “History of Russian Literature of the 19th Century” (1911) edited by Professor D. N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, A. E. Gruzinsky explains the critics’ claims to Turgenev as follows. In his opinion, in Turgenev’s work, most of all, they were looking for answers to the living questions of our time, the formulation of new social problems. " This element of his novels and stories alone was, in fact, taken seriously and carefully by the guiding criticism of the 50s and 60s; it was considered obligatory in Turgenev’s work" Having not received answers to their questions in the new works, the critics were dissatisfied and reprimanded the author “ for failure to fulfill his public duties" As a result, the author was declared exhausted and wasting his talent. Gruzinsky calls this approach to Turgenev’s work one-sided and erroneous. Turgenev was not a writer-prophet, a writer-citizen, although he connected all his major works with important and burning themes of his turbulent era, but most of all he was an artist-poet, and his interest in public life was, rather, in the nature of careful analysis .

Critic E. A. Solovyov joins this conclusion. He also draws attention to the mission of Turgenev as a translator of Russian literature for European readers. Thanks to him, soon almost all the best works of Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy were translated into foreign languages. " No one, we note, was better suited to this high and difficult task than Turgenev.<…>By the very essence of his talent, he was not only Russian, but also a European, world-wide writer"- writes E. A. Solovyov. Dwelling on the way of depicting the love of Turgenev’s girls, he makes the following observation: “ Turgenev's heroines fall in love immediately and love only once, and this is for the rest of their lives. They are obviously from the tribe of poor Azdras, for whom love and death were equivalent<…>Love and death, love and death are his inseparable artistic associations" In the character of Turgenev, the critic also finds much of what the writer portrayed in his hero Rudin: “ Undoubted chivalry and not particularly high vanity, idealism and a tendency towards melancholy, a huge mind and a broken will».

The representative of decadent criticism in Russia, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, had an ambivalent attitude towards Turgenev’s work. He did not appreciate Turgenev’s novels, preferring “small prose” to them, especially the so-called “mysterious stories and tales” of the writer. According to Merezhkovsky, Ivan Turgenev is the first impressionist artist, the forerunner of the later symbolists: “ The value of Turgenev the artist for the literature of the future<…>in the creation of an impressionistic style, which represents an artistic formation unrelated to the work of this writer as a whole».

Symbolist poet and critic Maximilian Voloshin wrote that Turgenev, thanks to his artistic sophistication, which he learned from French writers, occupies a special place in Russian literature. But unlike French literature with its fragrant and fresh sensuality, the feeling of living and loving flesh, Turgenev bashfully and dreamily idealized a woman. In Voloshin’s contemporary literature, he saw a connection between Ivan Bunin’s prose and Turgenev’s landscape sketches.

Subsequently, the topic of Bunin's superiority over Turgenev in landscape prose will be repeatedly raised by literary critics. Even L.N. Tolstoy, according to the recollections of pianist A.B. Goldenweiser, said about the description of nature in Bunin’s story: “it is raining,” and it is written so that Turgenev would not have written like that, and there is nothing to say about me.” Both Turgenev and Bunin were united by the fact that both were writer-poets, writers-hunters, writers-nobles and authors of “noble” stories. Nevertheless, the singer of the “sad poetry of ruined noble nests,” Bunin, according to the literary critic Fyodor Stepun, “as an artist is much more sensual than Turgenev.” “The nature of Bunin, for all the realistic accuracy of his writing, is still completely different from that of our two greatest realists - Tolstoy and Turgenev. Bunin’s nature is more unstable, more musical, more psychic and, perhaps, even more mystical than the nature of Tolstoy and Turgenev.” Nature in Turgenev’s depiction is more static than in Bunin’s, says F.A. Stepun, despite the fact that Turgenev has more purely external picturesqueness and picturesqueness.

Russian language

From "Poems in Prose"

In days of doubt, in days of painful thoughts about the fate of my homeland, you alone are my support and support, oh great, mighty, truthful and free Russian language! Without you, how can one not fall into despair at the sight of everything that is happening at home? But one cannot believe that such a language was not given to a great people!

In the Soviet Union, Turgenev’s work was paid attention not only by critics and literary scholars, but also by the leaders and leaders of the Soviet state: V. I. Lenin, M. I. Kalinin, A. V. Lunacharsky. Scientific literary criticism largely depended on the ideological guidelines of “party” literary criticism. Among those who contributed to Turgen studies are G. N. Pospelov, N. L. Brodsky, B. L. Modzalevsky, V. E. Evgeniev-Maksimov, M. B. Khrapchenko, G. A. Byaly, S. M. Petrov, A. I. Batyuto, G. B. Kurlyandskaya, N. I. Prutskov, Yu. V. Mann, Priyma F. Ya., A. B. Muratov, V. I. Kuleshov, V. M. Markovich, V. G. Fridlyand, K. I. Chukovsky, B. V. Tomashevsky, B. M. Eikhenbaum, V. B. Shklovsky, Yu. G. Oksman A. S. Bushmin, M. P. Alekseev and etc.

Turgenev was repeatedly quoted by V.I. Lenin, who especially highly valued him “ great and mighty" language. M.I. Kalinin said that Turgenev’s work had not only artistic, but also socio-political significance, which gave artistic brilliance to his works, and that the writer showed in the serf peasant a man who, like all people, deserves to have human rights. A.V. Lunacharsky, in his lecture dedicated to the work of Ivan Turgenev, called him one of the creators of Russian literature. According to A. M. Gorky, Turgenev left an “excellent legacy” to Russian literature.

According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the artistic system created by the writer influenced the poetics of not only Russian, but also Western European novels of the second half of the 19th century. It largely served as the basis for the “intellectual” novel by L. N. Tolstoy and F. M. Dostoevsky, in which the fate of the central characters depends on their solution to an important philosophical question of universal significance. The literary principles laid down by the writer were developed in the works of many Soviet writers - A. N. Tolstoy, K. G. Paustovsky and others. His plays became an integral part of the repertoire of Soviet theaters. Many of Turgenev's works were filmed. Soviet literary scholars paid great attention to the creative heritage of Turgenev - many works were published devoted to the life and work of the writer, to the study of his role in the Russian and world literary process. Scientific studies of his texts were carried out, and commented collected works were published. Turgenev museums were opened in the city of Orel and the former estate of his mother, Spassky-Lutovinovo.

According to the academic “History of Russian Literature”, Turgenev became the first in Russian literature who managed in his work, through pictures of everyday village life and various images of ordinary peasants, to express the idea that the enslaved people constitute the root, the living soul of the nation. And the literary critic Professor V.M. Markovich said that Turgenev was one of the first to try to portray the inconsistency of the people’s character without embellishment, and he was the first to show the same people worthy of admiration, admiration and love.

Soviet literary critic G.N. Pospelov wrote that Turgenev’s literary style can be called realistic, despite its emotional and romantic elation. Turgenev saw the social weakness of the advanced people from the nobility and looked for another force capable of leading the Russian liberation movement; he later saw such strength in the Russian democrats of 1860-1870.

Foreign criticism

I. S. Turgenev is an honorary doctor of the University of Oxford. Photo by A. Liber, 1879

Of the emigrant writers and literary critics, V.V. Nabokov, B.K. Zaitsev, and D.P. Svyatopolk-Mirsky turned to Turgenev’s work. Many foreign writers and critics also left their reviews of Turgenev’s work: Friedrich Bodenstedt, Emile Oman, Ernest Renan, Melchior de Vogüe, Saint-Beuve, Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, Edmond de Goncourt, Emile Zola, Henry James, John Galsworthy, George Sand, Virginia Woolf, Anatole France, James Joyce, William Rolston, Alphonse Daudet, Theodore Storm, Hippolyte Taine, Georg Brandes, Thomas Carlyle and so on.

The English prose writer and Nobel Prize winner in literature John Galsworthy considered Turgenev's novels to be the greatest example of prose art and noted that Turgenev helped " bring the proportions of the novel to perfection" For him Turgenev was “ the most sophisticated poet who ever wrote novels", and the Turgenev tradition was important for Galsworthy.

Another British writer, literary critic and representative of modernist literature of the first half of the 20th century, Virginia Woolf, noted that Turgenev’s books not only touch with their poetry, but also seem to belong to today’s time, so they have not lost the perfection of form. She wrote that Ivan Turgenev is characterized by a rare quality: a sense of symmetry and balance, which give a generalized and harmonious picture of the world. At the same time, she made a reservation that this symmetry triumphs not at all because he is such a great storyteller. On the contrary, Woolf believed that some of his stories were rather poorly told, since they contained loops and digressions, confusing, unintelligible information about great-grandparents (as in “The Noble Nest”). But she pointed out that Turgenev’s books are not a sequence of episodes, but a sequence of emotions emanating from the central character, and it is not objects that are connected in them, but feelings, and when you finish reading the book, you experience aesthetic satisfaction. Another famous representative of modernism, Russian and American writer and literary critic V.V. Nabokov, in his “Lectures on Russian Literature,” spoke of Turgenev not as a great writer, but called him “ cute" Nabokov noted that Turgenev’s landscapes were good, “Turgenev’s girls” were charming, and he spoke approvingly of the musicality of Turgenev’s prose. And he called the novel “Fathers and Sons” one of the most brilliant works of the 19th century. But he also pointed out the writer’s shortcomings, saying that he “ gets bogged down in disgusting sweetness" According to Nabokov, Turgenev was often too straightforward and did not trust the reader’s intuition, himself trying to dot the i’s. Another modernist, the Irish writer James Joyce, especially singled out “Notes of a Hunter” from the entire work of the Russian writer, which, in his opinion, “ penetrate deeper into life than his novels" Joyce believed that it was from them that Turgenev developed as a great international writer.

According to researcher D. Peterson, the American reader was struck by Turgenev’s work “ manner of narration... far from both Anglo-Saxon moralizing and French frivolity" According to the critic, the model of realism created by Turgenev had a great influence on the formation of realistic principles in the work of American writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

XXI Century

In Russia, much attention is paid to the study and memory of Turgenev’s work in the 21st century. Every five years, the State Literature Museum of I. S. Turgenev in Orel, together with Oryol State University and the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, holds major scientific conferences that have international status. As part of the “Turgenev Autumn” project, the museum annually hosts Turgenev readings, in which researchers of the writer’s work from Russia and abroad take part. Turgenev anniversaries are also celebrated in other cities of Russia. In addition, his memory is celebrated abroad. Thus, in the Ivan Turgenev Museum in Bougival, which opened on the 100th anniversary of the writer’s death on September 3, 1983, so-called music salons are held annually, where the music of composers from the times of Ivan Turgenev and Pauline Viardot is heard.

Statements of Turgenev

“No matter what a person prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer boils down to the following: “Great God, make sure that two and two do not become four!”

Illustrators of works

Jacob the Turk sings (“The Singers”). Illustration by B. M. Kustodiev for “Notes of a Hunter”, 1908

Over the years, the works of I. S. Turgenev were illustrated by illustrators and graphic artists P. M. Boklevsky, N. D. Dmitriev-Orenburgsky, A. A. Kharlamov, V. V. Pukirev, P. P. Sokolov, V. M. Vasnetsov, D. N. Kardovsky, V. A. Taburin, K. I. Rudakov, V. A. Sveshnikov, P. F. Stroev, N. A. Benois, B. M. Kustodiev, K. V. Lebedev and others. The imposing figure of Turgenev is captured in the sculpture of A. N. Belyaev, M. M. Antokolsky, Zh. A. Polonskaya, S. A. Lavrentieva, in the drawings of D. V. Grigorovich, A. A. Bakunin, K. A. Gorbunov, I. N. Kramsky, Adolf Menzel, Pauline Viardot, Ludwig Pietsch, M. M. Antokolsky, K. Shamro, in caricatures by N. A. Stepanov, A. I. Lebedev, V. I. Porfiryev, A. M. Volkov , in the engraving of Yu. S. Baranovsky, in the portraits of E. Lamy, A. P. Nikitin, V. G. Perov, I. E. Repin, Ya. P. Polonsky, V. V. Vereshchagin, V. V. Mate , E. K. Lipgart, A. A. Kharlamov, V. A. Bobrova. The works of many painters “based on Turgenev” are known: Ya. P. Polonsky (plots by Spassky-Lutovinov), S. Yu. Zhukovsky (“Poetry of an old noble nest”, “Night”), V. G. Perov, (“Old parents at his son's grave"). Ivan Sergeevich himself drew well and was an auto-illustrator of his own works.

Film adaptations

Many films and television films have been made based on the works of Ivan Turgenev. His works formed the basis for paintings created in different countries of the world. The first film adaptations appeared at the beginning of the 20th century (the era of silent films). The film “The Freeloader” was filmed twice in Italy (1913 and 1924). In 1915, the films “The Noble Nest”, “After Death” (based on the story “Klara Milich”) and “Song of Triumphant Love” (with the participation of V.V. Kholodnaya and V.A. Polonsky) were shot in the Russian Empire. The story “Spring Waters” was filmed 8 times in different countries. Four films were made based on the novel “The Noble Nest”; based on stories from “Notes of a Hunter” - 4 films; based on the comedy “A Month in the Country” - 10 TV films; based on the story “Mumu” ​​- 2 feature films and a cartoon; based on the play “Freeloader” - 5 paintings. The novel “Fathers and Sons” served as the basis for 4 films and a television series, the story “First Love” formed the basis for nine feature films and television films.

The image of Turgenev was used in cinema by director Vladimir Khotinenko. In the 2011 television series Dostoevsky, the role of the writer was played by actor Vladimir Simonov. In the film “Belinsky” by Grigory Kozintsev (1951), the role of Turgenev was played by actor Igor Litovkin, and in the film “Tchaikovsky” directed by Igor Talankin (1969), the writer was played by actor Bruno Freundlich.

Addresses

In Moscow

Biographers count over fifty addresses and memorable places in Moscow associated with Turgenev.

• 1824 - house of state councilor A.V. Kopteva on Bolshaya Nikitskaya (not preserved);
• 1827 - city estate, Valuev's property - Sadovaya-Samotyochnaya street, 12/2 (not preserved - rebuilt);
• 1829 - Krause boarding house, Armenian Institute - Armenian Lane, 2;
• 1830 - Steingel House - Gagarinsky Lane, building 15/7;
• 1830s - House of General N.F. Alekseeva - Sivtsev Vrazhek (corner of Kaloshin Lane), building 24/2;
• 1830s - House of M. A. Smirnov (not preserved, now a building built in 1903) - Verkhnyaya Kislovka;
• 1830s - House of M. N. Bulgakova - in Maly Uspensky Lane;
• 1830s - House on Malaya Bronnaya Street (not preserved);
• 1839-1850 - Ostozhenka, 37 (corner of 2nd Ushakovsky Lane, now Khilkov Lane). It is generally accepted that the house where I. S. Turgenev visited Moscow belonged to his mother, but N. M. Chernov, a researcher of Turgenev’s life and work, indicates that the house was rented from the surveyor N. V. Loshakovsky;
• 1850s - house of Nikolai Sergeevich Turgenev’s brother - Prechistenka, 26 (not preserved)
• 1860s - The house where I. S. Turgenev repeatedly visited the apartment of his friend, the manager of the Moscow appanage office, I. I. Maslov - Prechistensky Boulevard, 10;

In St. Petersburg

• End of summer 1839 - January 1841 - Efremova's house - Gagarinskaya street 12;
• October 1850 - April 1851 - Lopatin's house - Nevsky Prospekt, 68;
• December 1851 - May 1852 - Guillerme apartment building - Gorokhovaya street, 8, apt. 9;
• December 1853 - end of November 1854 - Povarsky Lane, 13;
• end of November 1854 - July 1856 - Stepanov's apartment building - embankment of the Fontanka River, 38;
• November 1858 - April 1860 - apartment building of F. K. Weber - Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street, 13;
• 1861; 1872; 1874; 1876 ​​- Hotel "Demut" - Moika River embankment, 40;
• January 4, 1864-1867 - Hotel "France" - Bolshaya Morskaya Street, 6;
• 1867 - V.P. Botkin’s apartment in Fedorov’s apartment building - Karavannaya Street, 14;
• May-June 1877 - furnished rooms at Bouillet - Nevsky Prospekt, 22;
• February-March 1879 - European Hotel - Bolshaya Italianskaya Street, 7.
• January-April 1880 - Kverner's furnished rooms - Nevsky Prospekt, No. 11/Malaya Morskaya Street, No. 2/Kirpichny Lane, No. 2

Memory

The following objects are named after Turgenev.

Toponymy

• Streets and squares of Turgenev in many cities of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia.
• Moscow metro station "Turgenevskaya".

Public institutions

• Oryol State Academic Theater.
• Library-reading room named after I. S. Turgenev in Moscow.
• School of Russian language and Russian culture named after Turgenev (Turin, Italy).
• Russian Public Library named after I. S. Turgenev (Paris, France).
• Oryol State University named after I. S. Turgenev

Museums

• Museum of I. S. Turgenev (“ Mumu's house") - (Moscow, Ostozhenka St., 37).
• State Literary Museum of I. S. Turgenev (Oryol).
• Museum-reserve "Spasskoye-Lutovinovo" estate of I. S. Turgenev (Oryol region).
• Street and museum "I. S. Turgenev's Dacha" in Bougival, France.

Monuments

In honor of I. S. Turgenev the following were installed:

• monument in Moscow (in Bobrov Lane).
• monument in St. Petersburg (on Italianskaya street).
• Eagle:
  • Monument in Orel;
  • Bust of Turgenev on the "Noble Nest".

Other objects

• The name of Turgenev was borne by the branded train of JSC FPK Moscow - Simferopol - Moscow (No. 029/030) in common traffic with Moscow - Orel - Moscow (No. 33/34)
• In 1979, a crater on Mercury was named in honor of Turgenev.

In philately

• The writer is depicted on several Soviet stamps, as well as on a 1978 Bulgarian postage stamp.

Bibliography

Collected works

• Turgenev I. S. Collected works in 11 volumes. - M.: Pravda, 1949.
• Turgenev I. S. Collected works in 12 volumes. - M.: Fiction, 1953-1958.
• Turgenev I. S. Collected works in 15 volumes. - L.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1960-1965.
• Turgenev I. S. Complete collection of works and letters in twenty-eight volumes. - M. - L.: Science, 1960-1968.
  • Works in fifteen volumes

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev(Turgeniev) (October 28, 1818, Oryol, Russian Empire - August 22, 1883, Bougival, France) - Russian writer, poet, translator; Corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of Russian language and literature (1860). Considered one of the classics of world literature.

Biography

Father, Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev (1793-1834), was a retired cuirassier colonel. Mother, Varvara Petrovna Turgeneva (before Lutovinov's marriage) (1787-1850), came from a wealthy noble family.

The family of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev came from an ancient family of Tula nobles, the Turgenevs. It is curious that the great-grandfathers were involved in the events of the times of Ivan the Terrible: the names of such representatives of this family as Ivan Vasilyevich Turgenev, who was Ivan the Terrible’s nursery (1550-1556); Dmitry Vasilyevich was a governor in Kargopol in 1589. And in the Time of Troubles, Pyotr Nikitich Turgenev was executed at the Execution Ground in Moscow for denouncing False Dmitry I; great-grandfather Alexey Romanovich Turgenev was a participant in the Russian-Turkish war under Anna Ioannovna.

Until the age of 9, Ivan Turgenev lived on the hereditary estate Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, 10 km from Mtsensk, Oryol province. In 1827, the Turgenevs, in order to give their children an education, settled in Moscow, buying a house on Samotek.

The first romantic interest of young Turgenev was falling in love with the daughter of Princess Shakhovskaya, Ekaterina. The estates of their parents in the Moscow region bordered, they often exchanged visits. He is 14, she is 18. In letters to her son, V.P. Turgenev called E.L. Shakhovskaya a “poet” and a “villain,” since Sergei Nikolaevich Turgenev himself, his son’s happy rival, could not resist the charms of the young princess. The episode was revived much later, in 1860, in the story “First Love.”

After his parents went abroad, Ivan Sergeevich first studied at the Weidenhammer boarding school, then at the boarding school of the director of the Lazarevsky Institute, Krause. In 1833, 15-year-old Turgenev entered the literature department of Moscow University. Herzen and Belinsky studied here at that time. A year later, after Ivan’s older brother joined the Guards Artillery, the family moved to St. Petersburg, and Ivan Turgenev then moved to the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg University. Timofey Granovsky became his friend.

Group portrait of Russian writers - members of the editorial board of the Sovremennik magazine. Top row: L. N. Tolstoy, D. V. Grigorovich; bottom row: I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, A. V. Druzhinin, A. N. Ostrovsky, 1856

At that time, Turgenev saw himself in the poetic field. In 1834 he wrote the dramatic poem “Steno” and several lyric poems. The young author showed these samples of writing to his teacher, professor of Russian literature P. A. Pletnev. Pletnev called the poem a weak imitation of Byron, but noted that the author “has something.” By 1837, he had already written about a hundred small poems. At the beginning of 1837, an unexpected and short meeting took place with A.S. Pushkin. In the first issue of the Sovremennik magazine for 1838, which after Pushkin’s death was published under the editorship of P. A. Pletnev, Turgenev’s poem “Evening” was published with the caption “- - -въ”, which is the author’s debut.

In 1836, Turgenev graduated from the course with the degree of a full student. Dreaming of scientific activity, the following year he again took the final exam, received a candidate's degree, and in 1838 he went to Germany. During the trip, a fire broke out on the ship, and the passengers miraculously managed to escape. Turgenev, who feared for his life, asked one of the sailors to save him and promised him a reward from his rich mother if he managed to fulfill his request. Other passengers testified that the young man plaintively exclaimed: “To die so young!”, while pushing women and children away from the lifeboats. Fortunately, the shore was not far.

Once on the shore, the young man was ashamed of his cowardice. Rumors of his cowardice permeated society and became the subject of ridicule. The event played a certain negative role in the subsequent life of the author and was described by Turgenev himself in the short story “Fire at Sea.” Having settled in Berlin, Ivan took up his studies. While listening to lectures at the university on the history of Roman and Greek literature, at home he studied the grammar of ancient Greek and Latin. Here he became close to Stankevich. In 1839 he returned to Russia, but already in 1840 he went abroad again, visiting Germany, Italy and Austria. Impressed by his meeting with a girl in Frankfurt am Main, Turgenev later wrote the story “Spring Waters”.

Henri Troyat, “Ivan Turgenev” “My whole life is permeated with the feminine principle. Neither a book nor anything else can replace a woman for me... How can I explain this? I believe that only love causes such a flowering of the whole being that nothing else can give. And what do you think? Listen, in my youth I had a mistress - a miller's wife from the outskirts of St. Petersburg. I met her when I went hunting. She was very pretty - blonde with radiant eyes, the kind we see quite often. She didn't want to accept anything from me. And one day she said: “You should give me a gift!” - "What do you want?" - “Bring me soap!” I brought her soap. She took it and disappeared. She returned flushed and said, holding out her fragrant hands to me: “Kiss my hands as you kiss them to the ladies in St. Petersburg drawing rooms!” I threw myself on my knees in front of her... There is no moment in my life that could compare with this!” (Edmond Goncourt. "Diary", March 2, 1872.)

Turgenev's story at dinner at Flaubert's

In 1841, Ivan returned to Lutovinovo. He became interested in the seamstress Dunyasha, who in 1842 gave birth to his daughter Pelageya (Polina). Dunyasha was married off, leaving her daughter in an ambiguous position.

At the beginning of 1842, Ivan Turgenev submitted a request to Moscow University for admission to the exam for the degree of Master of Philosophy. At the same time he began his literary activity.

The largest printed work of this time was the poem “Parasha”, written in 1843. Not hoping for positive criticism, he took the copy to V. G. Belinsky at Lopatin’s house, leaving the manuscript with the critic’s servant. Belinsky praised Parasha, publishing a positive review in Otechestvennye zapiski two months later. From that moment their acquaintance began, which over time grew into a strong friendship.

In the fall of 1843, Turgenev first saw Pauline Viardot on the stage of the opera house, when the great singer came on tour to St. Petersburg. Then, while hunting, he met Polina’s husband, the director of the Italian Theater in Paris, a famous critic and art critic, Louis Viardot, and on November 1, 1843, he was introduced to Polina herself. Among the mass of fans, she did not particularly single out Turgenev, who was better known as an avid hunter rather than a writer. And when her tour ended, Turgenev, together with the Viardot family, left for Paris against the will of his mother, without money and still unknown to Europe. In November 1845, he returned to Russia, and in January 1847, having learned about Viardot’s tour in Germany, he left the country again: he went to Berlin, then to London, Paris, a tour of France and again to St. Petersburg.

In 1846 he took part in updating Sovremennik. Nekrasov is his best friend. With Belinsky he travels abroad in 1847 and in 1848 lives in Paris, where he witnesses revolutionary events. He becomes close to Herzen and falls in love with Ogarev's wife Tuchkova. In 1850-1852 he lived either in Russia or abroad. Most of the “Notes of a Hunter” were created by the writer in Germany.

Pauline Viardot

Without an official marriage, Turgenev lived in the Viardot family. Polina Viardot raised Turgenev's illegitimate daughter. Several meetings with Gogol and Fet date back to this time.

In 1846, the stories “Breter” and “Three Portraits” were published. Later he wrote such works as “The Freeloader” (1848), “The Bachelor” (1849), “Provincial Woman”, “A Month in the Village”, “Quiet” (1854), “Yakov Pasynkov” (1855), “Breakfast at the Leader’s "(1856), etc. He wrote "Mumu" in 1852, while in exile in Spassky-Lutovinovo because of the obituary on the death of Gogol, which, despite the ban, he published in Moscow.

In 1852, a collection of Turgenev’s short stories was published under the general title “Notes of a Hunter,” which was released in Paris in 1854. After the death of Nicholas I, four major works of the writer were published one after another: “Rudin” (1856), “The Noble Nest” (1859), “On the Eve” (1860) and “Fathers and Sons” (1862). The first two were published in Nekrasov's Sovremennik. The next two are in the “Russian Bulletin” by M. N. Katkov.

In 1860, Sovremennik published an article by N. A. Dobrolyubov, “When will the real day come?”, in which the novel “On the Eve” and Turgenev’s work in general were rather harshly criticized. Turgenev gave Nekrasov an ultimatum: either he, Turgenev, or Dobrolyubov. The choice fell on Dobrolyubov, who later became one of the prototypes for the image of Bazarov in the novel “Fathers and Sons.” After this, Turgenev left Sovremennik and stopped communicating with Nekrasov.

Turgenev gravitates towards the circle of Westernized writers who profess the principles of “pure art”, opposing the tendentious creativity of the common revolutionaries: P. V. Annenkov, V. P. Botkin, D. V. Grigorovich, A. V. Druzhinin. For a short time, Leo Tolstoy, who lived for some time in Turgenev’s apartment, also joined this circle. After Tolstoy’s marriage to S.A. Bers, Turgenev found a close relative in Tolstoy, but even before the wedding, in May 1861, when both prose writers were visiting A.A. Fet on the Stepanovo estate, a serious quarrel occurred between the two writers, barely which did not end in a duel and spoiled the relationship between the writers for 17 long years.

"Poems in Prose". Bulletin of Europe, 1882, December. From the editorial introduction it is clear that this is a magazine title, not an author's one.

From the beginning of the 1860s, Turgenev settled in Baden-Baden. The writer actively participates in the cultural life of Western Europe, making acquaintances with the greatest writers of Germany, France and England, promoting Russian literature abroad and introducing Russian readers to the best works of contemporary Western authors. Among his acquaintances or correspondents are Friedrich Bodenstedt, Thackeray, Dickens, Henry James, George Sand, Victor Hugo, Saint-Beuve, Hippolyte Taine, Prosper Mérimée, Ernest Renan, Théophile Gautier, Edmond Goncourt, Emile Zola, Anatole France, Guy de Maupassant , Alphonse Daudet, Gustave Flaubert. In 1874, the famous bachelor dinners of the five began in the Parisian restaurants of Riche or Pellet: Flaubert, Edmond Goncourt, Daudet, Zola and Turgenev.

I. S. Turgenev is an honorary doctor of the University of Oxford. 1879

I. S. Turgenev acts as a consultant and editor for foreign translators of Russian writers; he himself writes prefaces and notes to translations of Russian writers into European languages, as well as to Russian translations of works by famous European writers. He translates Western writers into Russian and Russian writers and poets into French and German. This is how translations of Flaubert’s works “Herodias” and “The Tale of St. Julian the Merciful" for the Russian reader and the works of Pushkin for the French reader. For some time, Turgenev became the most famous and most widely read Russian author in Europe. In 1878, at the international literary congress in Paris, the writer was elected vice-president; in 1879 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford University.

Feast of the classics. A. Daudet, G. Flaubert, E. Zola, I. S. Turgenev

Despite living abroad, all of Turgenev’s thoughts were still connected with Russia. He writes the novel “Smoke” (1867), which caused a lot of controversy in Russian society. According to the author, everyone criticized the novel: “both red and white, and above, and below, and from the side - especially from the side.” The fruit of his intense thoughts in the 1870s was the largest in volume of Turgenev’s novels, Nov (1877).

Turgenev was friends with the Milyutin brothers (fellow Minister of Internal Affairs and Minister of War), A.V. Golovnin (Minister of Education), M.H. Reitern (Minister of Finance).

At the end of his life, Turgenev decides to reconcile with Leo Tolstoy; he explains the significance of modern Russian literature, including Tolstoy’s work, to the Western reader. In 1880, the writer took part in Pushkin celebrations dedicated to the opening of the first monument to the poet in Moscow, organized by the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. The writer died in Bougival near Paris on August 22 (September 3), 1883 from myxosarcoma. Turgenev's body was, according to his wishes, brought to St. Petersburg and buried in the Volkov cemetery in front of a large crowd of people.

Family

Turgenev's daughter Polina was raised in the family of Polina Viardot, and in adulthood she no longer spoke Russian. She married manufacturer Gaston Brewer, who soon went bankrupt, after which Polina, with the assistance of her father, hid from her husband in Switzerland. Since Turgenev's heir was Polina Viardot, after his death his daughter found herself in a difficult financial situation. She died in 1918 from cancer. Polina's children, Georges-Albert and Jeanne, had no descendants.

Memory

Tombstone bust of Turgenev at Volkovskoye Cemetery

Named after Turgenev:

Toponymy

• Streets and Turgenev Square in many cities of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia.
• Moscow metro station "Turgenevskaya"

Public institutions

• Oryol State Academic Theater.
• Library-reading room named after I. S. Turgenev in Moscow.
• Museum of I. S. Turgenev (“Mumu’s house”) - (Moscow, Ostozhenka St., 37, building 7).
• Turgenev School of Russian Language and Russian Culture (Turin, Italy).
• State Literary Museum named after I. S. Turgenev (Oryol).
• Museum-reserve "Spasskoye-Lutovinovo" estate of I. S. Turgenev (Oryol region).
• Street and museum "Turgenev's Dacha" in Bougival.
• Russian Public Library named after I. S. Turgenev (Paris).

Monuments

In honor of I. S. Turgenev, monuments were erected in the following cities:

• Moscow (in Bobrov Lane).
• St. Petersburg (On Italianskaya Street).
• Eagle:
  • Monument in Orel.
  • Bust of Turgenev on the "Noble Nest".

• Ivan Turgenev is one of the main characters in Tom Stoppard's Coast of Utopia trilogy.
• F. M. Dostoevsky in his novel “Demons” portrays Turgenev as the character of “The Great Writer Karmazinov” - a loud, petty, practically mediocre writer who considers himself a genius and is holed up abroad.
• Ivan Turgenev had one of the largest brains of any person who ever lived, whose brain has been weighed:

His head immediately spoke of a very great development of mental abilities; and when, after the death of I. S. Turgenev, Paul Ber and Paul Reclus (surgeon) weighed his brain, they found that it was so much heavier than the heaviest known brain, namely Cuvier, that they did not believe their scales and took out new ones, to test yourself.

• After the death of his mother in 1850, the collegiate secretary I. S. Turgenev inherited 1925 souls of serfs.
• Chancellor of the German Empire Clovis Hohenlohe (1894-1900) called Ivan Turgenev the best candidate for the post of Prime Minister of Russia. He wrote about Turgenev: “Today I spoke with the smartest man in Russia.”